Installing Steam on the D: drive?

[triton2k3]

Good to keep the drive with windows on it not clogged up. I put most things on a second drive.

 

[I4AT]

Seems like many games still can't be installed to a separate directory. I installed TF2 to the SSD (C) and now pretty much every Valve game needs to be installed to the C drive, I'm guessing because they share common .gcf files. There are also a handful of other games that don't have the option like all the Company of Heroes games. Those might be transferable with Steam Mover though.

If I follow this guide (the Tip section) to build libraries and include all the My Documents folders on my D drive, will that essentially allow Windows to intercept all file save requests and move them to D instead of C? Or does that simply allow me to access files from the D drive by browsing the C folders, but I'd have to periodically move all files manually?

Or do I need to physically move the \Users\ folders instead? I'd like to have all pictures, music (including itunes library), videos, game saves, other documents saved to the D drive if possible. Whether that be by leaving C\Users\ where it is and having Windows "forward" all file saves to D instead, or moving the \Users\ folders to D by default, whichever is the proper setup, if any of that makes sense.

 

[Aikouka]

Seems like many games still can't be installed to a separate directory. I installed TF2 to the SSD (C) and now pretty much every Valve game needs to be installed to the C drive, I'm guessing because they share common .gcf files. There are also a handful of other games that don't have the option like all the Company of Heroes games. Those might be transferable with Steam Mover though.

Yeah, the source games (and a few others) have some GCF files in the steamapps/common folder. When you say that you installed TF2 to the C drive, did you use Steam's installer to create a new library there or did you use Steam Mover?

If I follow this guide (the Tip section) to build libraries and include all the My Documents folders on my D drive, will that essentially allow Windows to intercept all file save requests and move them to D instead of C? Or does that simply allow me to access files from the D drive by browsing the C folders, but I'd have to periodically move all files manually?

Or do I need to physically move the \Users\ folders instead? I'd like to have all pictures, music (including itunes library), videos, game saves, other documents saved to the D drive if possible. Whether that be by leaving C\Users\ where it is and having Windows "forward" all file saves to D instead, or moving the \Users\ folders to D by default, whichever is the proper setup, if any of that makes sense.

You could create a symbolic link (or whatever it's called in Windows) to the My Games folder that links to another drive, and then you won't have to move your entire User folder.

I just created my Steam library and iTunes library on my E drive (2TB HDD). My Amazon MP3 purchases are also set the download there.

 

[I4AT]

Yeah, the source games (and a few others) have some GCF files in the steamapps/common folder. When you say that you installed TF2 to the C drive, did you use Steam's installer to create a new library there or did you use Steam Mover?

You could create a symbolic link (or whatever it's called in Windows) to the My Games folder that links to another drive, and then you won't have to move your entire User folder.

I just created my Steam library and iTunes library on my E drive (2TB HDD). My Amazon MP3 purchases are also set the download there.

I have Steam itself on the C drive/SSD, I installed TF2 there as well, it was actually before I figured out how to set up a new library folder in the beta client so it just defaulted there, but that's where I wanted it anyways.

If I duplicated all the common .gcf and .ncf files in the root Steamapps folder to my D drive since it's a 1.5TB HDD, could I use Steam Mover to move everything in the \common\ folder to D? \common\left 4 dead 2 is 13gb for instance, so I don't mind duplicating however many gigs worth of shared Source engine files to a 1.5TB HDD in order to free up 13gb on the SSD.

(EDIT: nevermind, apparently anything in the \common\ folder should be transferable with Steam Mover, it's just games like TF2, CSS, and HL2 that are basically self contained in the Steamapps folder and don't have anything in the \common\ folder that can't be moved)

Is creating a symbolic link different from the library/include folder and "set as default save to" in the guide I linked? If so, how do I go about doing that?

 

[Aikouka]

If I duplicated all the common .gcf and .ncf files in the root Steamapps folder to my D drive since it's a 1.5TB HDD, could I use Steam Mover to move everything in the \common\ folder to D? \common\left 4 dead 2 is 13gb for instance, so I don't mind duplicating however many gigs worth of shared Source engine files to a 1.5TB HDD in order to free up 13gb on the SSD.

(EDIT: nevermind, apparently anything in the \common\ folder should be transferable with Steam Mover, it's just games like TF2, CSS, and HL2 that are basically self contained in the Steamapps folder and don't have anything in the \common\ folder that can't be moved)

Since you're using the beta client, one of the sort of easiest ways to move the game files is with Steam itself. You can delete the files, reinstall and choose to create a new library on the D drive. If you want to save the time and bandwidth, just copy and paste the files into the new library location (prior to deletion), start the download and it should just verify existing content.

Is creating a symbolic link different from the library/include folder and "set as default save to" in the guide I linked? If so, how do I go about doing that?

Yes. Symbolic Links (that's actually the Linux term) are actually what Steam Mover uses, and it allows you to create a fake folder or file at a location that actually points to a folder or file (respectively) at another location.

This site I found on Google seems decent at explaining how to do it:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbolic-links-symlinks-on-windows-or-linux/

I'd probably just use the command line method as it's only a single command.

 

[skillyho]

You can just cut/paste the Steam folder to another drive/partition and update your shortcut and it'll work just fine, for what it's worth. Done it tons of times when I forgot to specify the directory on a new install.

 

[szvwxcszxc]

Easy just change the install directory to

D:\Program Files

(during steam install). That's what I did.

If you already have it installed, then move all the data to another folder, then uninstall and reinstall on the D drive, then merge the data into the new install folder (so you don't have to re-download everything).

Best of luck

 

[Rhezuss]

Even if you install Steam, lets say on D\Games, it will still use C\Documents for the save games?

 

[szvwxcszxc]

Even if you install Steam, lets say on D\Games, it will still use C\Documents for the save games?

Yes, but why does that matter? It's probably <1 GB for ALL the saves. The Game Data is the concern here, and installing the Game Data to the D drive will free up potentially hundreds of GB to the C: drive.

Good to keep the drive with windows on it not clogged up. I put most things on a second drive.

me too, and when I have only one drive (i.e. Laptop), I partition the drive (using Gparted) to have about 180GB for Windows and the other partition for data and install data for large applications and games.

 

[Rhezuss]

Installed Steam on D\Games
Left the my new SSD on C for Win7/Drivers/etc

Damn SSDs ARE fast!

 

[SpacemanSam]

I use a batch file to run Chocolatey to install apps on each computer. The line that I'm currently using to install Steam is:
IF DEFINED Steam choco upgrade steam-client
This completely automates the installation, but installs Steam to the default installation path.
How do I specify the driveath where Steam is to be installed?
It must be completely automatic with no user interaction whatsoever.

 

[SpacemanSam]

I found the answer. Steam has a switch to specify the installation path: /D=drive:path

Here are the excerpts from the batch file I use to install it:

1. Configuration options:

REM Drive to install games on
SET GamesDrive=D:

REM Install Steam?
SET Steam=1

2. The thingamabob that does the job:

IF DEFINED Steam (
  setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
  SET SteamInstall=
  IF "%GamesDrive%" NEQ "%SystemDrive%" (
    SET "SteamDir=%GamesDrive%\Steam"
    IF NOT EXIST "!SteamDir!" MD "!SteamDir!"
    SET SteamInstall=--install-arguments="/D=!SteamDir!"
  )
  choco upgrade steam-client !SteamInstall! || PAUSE
  reg DELETE "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run" /V "Steam" /F 2>NUL:
  endlocal
)

 

[lakedude]

Holy necro thread Batman!

So yeah we did a migration starting with just a small SSD C: drive until it filled up. Got the kid a 1tb D: drive for his birthday. Moved the existing games from C: to D: and then made the default location for future games D: as well.