Dumb question: if I have my OS on one drive, and my games on another...

[CurseTheSky]

The title and summary pretty much say it all. I have my OS on one drive, and I'm in the process of installing all of my games on another drive. If I reformat / reinstall Windows (Vista x64) at a later date, will I be able to plug my games drive back in and run them immediately, or will I have to reinstall all of them? What about if I upgrade to new hardware (new drivers), or Windows 7?

I realize there are a number of files and folders that are usually stored on the OS drive (C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\, or Documents\SavedGames, or something similar) that may need to be copied, but will the game installations themselves get screwed up? I'm worried that there'll be paths to missing files, incorrect or missing registry entries, etc.

Basically, I don't want to waste my time installing all of these games on a separate drive if I'll just need to do it again when I upgrade my hardware and reformat in the near future.

Thanks.

 

[her209]

No they most likely will not work since some of them make use of the Windows registry.

 

[RebateMonger]

Most likely, some will work, some can be modified to work, and some won't work at all.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Games will lose their registry entries and some will just recreate them or some will not work at all.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Most likely, some will work, some can be modified to work, and some won't work at all.

It is extremely unlikely and rare for a game to still work... basically it needs to be either:
1. Pirated
2. Have absolutely no DRM AND be designed for such portability.

#2 exists, actually neverwinter nights 1 and 2 can just be "updated" with the built in updater (nwnupdate.exe), it will repair the registry entries and allow it to run (they do not use DRM anymore).

The vast majority of games will need to be reinstalled... on the plus side, your saves are still there... except the majority of games today put it somewhere stupid like your documents folder, appdata, or whereever, and if that is not backed up and restored you lose your saves.

 

[CurseTheSky]

Damn - there goes that idea. I guess I'll wait until Windows 7 comes out to install my entire game collection. Then hopefully if I make a backup of both my OS and games drive, restoring both at once will work without a hitch.

I actually don't have a ton of games compared to many people, but it's a pain to go through the entire find CD / download, install, update, enter account info, copy over saves games, etc. for 10-15+ games each time I need to reformat.

 

[philosofool]

New hardware drivers will not hurt your games performance. Nor will *upgrading* windows vista to Windows 7. You can install windows 7 over vista and keep your documents, games, programs, etc. in place. You cannot do that as a clean install, however. If a game stops working because of a Windows 7 install because of DRM, this is very badly designed DRM.

Honestly, I would recommend just downloading all your patches and keeping them and then just reinstalling as necessary. It won't take that long.

Note that it should be pretty easy to reinstall with your /Users/you data on a separate partition or drive. You will just need to edit the registry to indicate that some other drive is where your /Users/you is located. Well designed games should associate your saved games with something in /Users/you instead of on C:/Program Files so that multiple users can have separate save folders associated with a game installed on the computer without interfering with each other.

 

[taltamir]

Originally posted by: CurseTheSky
Damn - there goes that idea. I guess I'll wait until Windows 7 comes out to install my entire game collection. Then hopefully if I make a backup of both my OS and games drive, restoring both at once will work without a hitch.

I actually don't have a ton of games compared to many people, but it's a pain to go through the entire find CD / download, install, update, enter account info, copy over saves games, etc. for 10-15+ games each time I need to reformat.

there is no need to backup your games drive.
If you decide, for some reason, to downgrade from win7 back to your current install, you can just restore your OS drive from the backup and all the games will work... And if you do upgrade to win7, you cannot just "restore" the partition with the game and expect them to work with a fresh install, it will be the same issue... that is, no registry entries.

Why do you need to have ALL yours games installed AT ALL TIMES? just install games as you play them.

anyways, the ONLY thing to backup from a game is your saves.. and for most modern games thats in your documents / user data folder. which is probably on drive C.

 

[Ben90]

From my experience...most will work, half of the ones that dont will work with a simple registry install path added, and then the others wont... I mostly play old ass games though as i know crysis needs a crapload of reg stuff to work. Thats basically the newest game ive played thats not steam though...

So prolly the old stuff like 1995-2005ish will prolly work and anything built on vista up most likely wont

 

[taltamir]

most will work

Name some.

 

[Paperlantern]

Originally posted by: taltamir

most will work

Name some.

Guild Wars

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory

Old school yes, especially ET, but, they do

 

[alcoholbob]

Warcraft III will work (hell you can run the game off of a USB drive if you wanted to).

Also, if you launch STEAM (DO NOT REINSTALL STEAM, just use the existing launcher on the drive) it will create the necessary registry data so all the installed games will run. That said, Windows Live profiles will need to be redone, unless you backup your data before hand.

 

[CurseTheSky]

Originally posted by: Astrallite
Warcraft III will work (hell you can run the game off of a USB drive if you wanted to).

Also, if you launch STEAM (DO NOT REINSTALL STEAM, just use the existing launcher on the drive) it will create the necessary registry data so all the installed games will run. That said, Windows Live profiles will need to be redone, unless you backup your data before hand.

That note alone about Steam would save me a boatload of time. Sure, it doesn't take an eternity to download a game or two, but when you want 10+ games available for whenever you get the itch, downloading several gigs each gets boring very quickly.

 

[SolMiester]

Originally posted by: Ben90
From my experience...most will work, half of the ones that dont will work with a simple registry install path added, and then the others wont... I mostly play old ass games though as i know crysis needs a crapload of reg stuff to work. Thats basically the newest game ive played thats not steam though...

So prolly the old stuff like 1995-2005ish will prolly work and anything built on vista up most likely wont

Actually I concur, COD series, medal of Honour series, need for speed series to name a couple.
I have my G: (Games) partition on a separate drive for that very reason. There are a load that dont however.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: CurseTheSky

Originally posted by: Astrallite
Warcraft III will work (hell you can run the game off of a USB drive if you wanted to).

Also, if you launch STEAM (DO NOT REINSTALL STEAM, just use the existing launcher on the drive) it will create the necessary registry data so all the installed games will run. That said, Windows Live profiles will need to be redone, unless you backup your data before hand.

That note alone about Steam would save me a boatload of time. Sure, it doesn't take an eternity to download a game or two, but when you want 10+ games available for whenever you get the itch, downloading several gigs each gets boring very quickly.

You can back the files up to an external drive or a few DVD recordables if your Internet connection is slow. Personally, I just setup several games to download before bed and during work the next day. Never takes more than a day or two.

 

[ScorcherDarkly]

Is there an inherent benefit or drawback to having your games installed on a drive separate from your OS? Seems like it might run faster, but its something I've never done. With the small size of SSDs and ballooning game size, it seems like a good idea.

 

[AmberClad]

Originally posted by: ScorcherDarkly
Is there an inherent benefit or drawback to having your games installed on a drive separate from your OS? Seems like it might run faster, but its something I've never done. With the small size of SSDs and ballooning game size, it seems like a good idea.

I do this with my Steam collection so I don't have to spend days if not weeks downloading everything again or copying them to/from backup. Incidentally, as someone else already mentioned, games installed via Steam are also pretty painless as far as working with minimal additional work when you have it installed on a separate partition/drive and then reinstall the OS.