astro7730
Joined: Jan 06, 2011
Posts: 637
Location: Peterborough, Ontario Canada
hey guys if u have a second hard drive this will work for u !!! All my games are run from another drive as to not tie up space on my main hard drive.
Now u can do this when u freshly install the game by changing where the game wants to save the install info usually * C:\programs(x86) but ill explain how to move games from off your existing hard drive. And how to change the registry so these programs will run off the new drive.
Ok, heres how to backup your games, so that they are still there after reinstalling Windows. This is a relatively simple process, and you will only need to do this once per game. This also works with programs, although I can’t guarantee that it will work with every program out there, as I don’t have access to every single program in the world.
So, before we begin, here is what you will need before we proceed:
A hard drive that does NOT have your OS installed on it. This can also be a different partition on the same hard drive, but again, it cannot contain your operating system.
A legal* copy of the game you would like to install
Administrator rights on your computer for accessing and modifying registry values
The desire not to have to install that game ever again
First I will explain how to how to backup the game you are installing. Next, I will explain how to edit the location of your Personal (“My Documents”) folder so that you will also retain your game saves and settings. Lastly, I will cover the fix for some of the more stubborn games.
So, let’s dive in and get that game installed, for the last time.
Inside of drive G: right-click an empty part of the screen to bring up your context menu.
Then, under “New”, highlight and select “New Folder”
Now, let’s name this new folder “Games” (without the quotation marks)
Step 2: Next, install your game. For this example, I will use Call of Duty: World At War (COD:WOW).
Step 3: Now that we have the game installed, let’s move it to our new directory on our G: drive in the Games folder.
Navigate to your C:/Program Files folder (C:/Program Files (x86) for Vista x64 users), and find where your game was installed. In our example, COD:WAW installs to C:\Program Files (x86)\Activision\Call of Duty – World at War
Right-click on the folder your game is installed in (the Call of Duty – World at War folder in the example), and select “Copy”
Now, go the folder we created at G:/Games
Inside the G:/Games folder, right-click and select “Paste”
Be patient, as this is copying every file that the game installed to this new directory. So, this could take a few minutes.
Do not delete the copy of your game from the Program Files folder yet.
NOTE: Your game will not work yet, so keep reading…
Before we continue to Step 4, we need a little information about what are going to be doing.
Every game that you install, that stores games setting in the registry, will store them here: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software
In this key, you will find a key for every game that you have, that stored settings in the registry (which is the majority of games.)
The name for the key could be anything from the name of the company that produced the game, or it could just be the name of the game itself. COD:WAW installs its key as: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Activision \Call of Duty WAW (Mine is in this location because I’m running Vista x64)
Once you find the key for the game, look for an entry labeled InstallPath. (NOTE: It may not always be labeled as InstallPath, but most of the time it is.)
The InstallPath entry is what ties your game to the directory where your game is installed. And, if you change the directory where you game is located without changing this entry, your game will not work.
Step 4: Now that we know how to find the InstallPath key, let’s edit it so that it points to our new directory.
Go to your Start Menu, and open the “Run” Command
Type in “regedit” (without the quotation marks) and press Enter
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software
Locate the key that contains your game’s settings
Double-click on the entry InstallPath to be able to edit it
Change the information to: G:\Games\*folder for your game*. In our example, this would be: G:\Games\Call of Duty – World at War
Now your game should be able to run
Step 5: Check to make sure that your game works
Step 6: Now that we have confirmed the game is working, we have to make it to where we can reuse the registry settings at a later date.
Go back into the registry to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software
Right-click on the key for your game. In our example this would be: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Activision
Choose Export
For the File Name enter “Install” (without the quotation marks)
Make sure to save this registry file in the same directory (G:/Games) that we copied the game to. In our example, this is: G:/Games/Call of Duty – World at War
Step 7: Navigate back to the games original installation folder, in C:\Program Files and erase the original game files, as these will no longer work now that we have changed the registry entry.
This will put a file named Install.reg into the directory where we moved our game to.
Now, when we reinstall Windows, we will only need to double-click the Install.reg file to apply the settings we saved back to the registry, and the game will work again.
This file has all of the settings that the games stores in the registry for that game.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, I’ll quickly run you through the steps of how to backup all of your save games, so that you will not lose them when you reinstall Windows. What this means is that we need to change the location of our Personal (or “My Documents”) folder so that all of our game saves will be on the same drive as our Games.
Step 1: Open the registry again (See Part 1: Backing up your game if you need to remember how to access the registry)
Step 2: Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
Step 3: Locate the entry labeled: Personal
Step 4: Change the data to your new My Documents folder
-For example: G:/Games/Saves
NOTE: It is suggested that you export this registry key as well so that you don’t have to redo this after every install. Instead just run the exported .reg file.
one thing I forgot is that your old desktop icons will not work u have to delete them and create new ones from the .exe files for the game files or steam.exe to add to your desktop as we have changed the drive path used for these icons.
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Any questions feel free to pm me and ill help u in anyway I can
Now u can do this when u freshly install the game by changing where the game wants to save the install info usually * C:\programs(x86) but ill explain how to move games from off your existing hard drive. And how to change the registry so these programs will run off the new drive.
Ok, heres how to backup your games, so that they are still there after reinstalling Windows. This is a relatively simple process, and you will only need to do this once per game. This also works with programs, although I can’t guarantee that it will work with every program out there, as I don’t have access to every single program in the world.
So, before we begin, here is what you will need before we proceed:
A hard drive that does NOT have your OS installed on it. This can also be a different partition on the same hard drive, but again, it cannot contain your operating system.
A legal* copy of the game you would like to install
Administrator rights on your computer for accessing and modifying registry values
The desire not to have to install that game ever again
First I will explain how to how to backup the game you are installing. Next, I will explain how to edit the location of your Personal (“My Documents”) folder so that you will also retain your game saves and settings. Lastly, I will cover the fix for some of the more stubborn games.
So, let’s dive in and get that game installed, for the last time.
Inside of drive G: right-click an empty part of the screen to bring up your context menu.
Then, under “New”, highlight and select “New Folder”
Now, let’s name this new folder “Games” (without the quotation marks)
Step 2: Next, install your game. For this example, I will use Call of Duty: World At War (COD:WOW).
Step 3: Now that we have the game installed, let’s move it to our new directory on our G: drive in the Games folder.
Navigate to your C:/Program Files folder (C:/Program Files (x86) for Vista x64 users), and find where your game was installed. In our example, COD:WAW installs to C:\Program Files (x86)\Activision\Call of Duty – World at War
Right-click on the folder your game is installed in (the Call of Duty – World at War folder in the example), and select “Copy”
Now, go the folder we created at G:/Games
Inside the G:/Games folder, right-click and select “Paste”
Be patient, as this is copying every file that the game installed to this new directory. So, this could take a few minutes.
Do not delete the copy of your game from the Program Files folder yet.
NOTE: Your game will not work yet, so keep reading…
Before we continue to Step 4, we need a little information about what are going to be doing.
Every game that you install, that stores games setting in the registry, will store them here: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software
In this key, you will find a key for every game that you have, that stored settings in the registry (which is the majority of games.)
The name for the key could be anything from the name of the company that produced the game, or it could just be the name of the game itself. COD:WAW installs its key as: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Activision \Call of Duty WAW (Mine is in this location because I’m running Vista x64)
Once you find the key for the game, look for an entry labeled InstallPath. (NOTE: It may not always be labeled as InstallPath, but most of the time it is.)
The InstallPath entry is what ties your game to the directory where your game is installed. And, if you change the directory where you game is located without changing this entry, your game will not work.
Step 4: Now that we know how to find the InstallPath key, let’s edit it so that it points to our new directory.
Go to your Start Menu, and open the “Run” Command
Type in “regedit” (without the quotation marks) and press Enter
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software
Locate the key that contains your game’s settings
Double-click on the entry InstallPath to be able to edit it
Change the information to: G:\Games\*folder for your game*. In our example, this would be: G:\Games\Call of Duty – World at War
Now your game should be able to run
Step 5: Check to make sure that your game works
Step 6: Now that we have confirmed the game is working, we have to make it to where we can reuse the registry settings at a later date.
Go back into the registry to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software
Right-click on the key for your game. In our example this would be: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Activision
Choose Export
For the File Name enter “Install” (without the quotation marks)
Make sure to save this registry file in the same directory (G:/Games) that we copied the game to. In our example, this is: G:/Games/Call of Duty – World at War
Step 7: Navigate back to the games original installation folder, in C:\Program Files and erase the original game files, as these will no longer work now that we have changed the registry entry.
This will put a file named Install.reg into the directory where we moved our game to.
Now, when we reinstall Windows, we will only need to double-click the Install.reg file to apply the settings we saved back to the registry, and the game will work again.
This file has all of the settings that the games stores in the registry for that game.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, I’ll quickly run you through the steps of how to backup all of your save games, so that you will not lose them when you reinstall Windows. What this means is that we need to change the location of our Personal (or “My Documents”) folder so that all of our game saves will be on the same drive as our Games.
Step 1: Open the registry again (See Part 1: Backing up your game if you need to remember how to access the registry)
Step 2: Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders
Step 3: Locate the entry labeled: Personal
Step 4: Change the data to your new My Documents folder
-For example: G:/Games/Saves
NOTE: It is suggested that you export this registry key as well so that you don’t have to redo this after every install. Instead just run the exported .reg file.
one thing I forgot is that your old desktop icons will not work u have to delete them and create new ones from the .exe files for the game files or steam.exe to add to your desktop as we have changed the drive path used for these icons.
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Any questions feel free to pm me and ill help u in anyway I can
