Games saved to a 2nd SSD

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guytanatz

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I have Windows 10 installed in a 120gb SSD and then a 1tb SSD for games. How come when I reinstall the OS the games no longer work? In theory, I shouldn't have to reinstall the games again, correct? Which is the whole point of installing them to a different drive. Is it a registry issue?

Thanks in advance!
 
Unless you are using Steam, which can re-link to alternate Steam libraries, then yes, you would need to reinstall those games for the proper registry entries, pathing, etc. to be fixed.
 
Everything on steam will be just fine. Even origin for that matter.

But as for individual games, they will vary. Usually if you link the exe to the desktop, once the game updates it will continue to work via that link.
 
http://www.gamesave-manager.com/

Use Steam Spreader I think it's more fool proof than Steam Mover it's updated more often and you can do Origin games as well without errors...

I found it's best to keep Steam Games ALL on a different drive different than your OS.
 
Almost defeats the purpose of installing to a separate hard drive.

Thanks everyone for the responses!
 
steam, origin and uwp games can be moved around. others games will have registry entries that are missing after a windows reload. that's why they wont work. and some games are completely self contained and don't care where they are or if they move around.
 
guytanatz said:
Almost defeats the purpose of installing to a separate hard drive.

Thanks everyone for the responses!
Click to expand...

Eh, yes and no. It is a lot easier to back up and restore an OS drive that is say, 100gb in size than one that has all of your games installed. Steam and others like it have gotten better about handling changes. Steam can now do the install moving between drives/directories in the program itself. Blizzard games are the same, just tell the battlenet launcher where the game is installed.
 
If you kept your old registry files (C:\Users\guytanatz\NTUSER.DAT), then you can temporarily load them in the registry editor as a hive (file>load hive>pick a randomish name). You can export what you need so the game works (will involve some searching, try the publishers name as well as the developers name). I find some games will also bitch without the uninstall info.
Some games may also store settings under hkey_local_machine, so you may also need to load up C:\Windows\System32\config\SOFTWARE.

Good luck


Edit: Link Shell Ext works great for relocating Steam and other games (or anything really). You just right-click and drag a folder where you want and pick make junction, then delete it when you don't need it.
 
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yeah you can always do that too. I didn't mention it as its a pain in the ass if there are lots of reg entries. but if you put in the time you could make batch files to replace the needed reg entries.
 
Just depends on how desperate he is versus his connection speed :)
but yeah def pain in the ass (if I'm installing something I find this helps)

Searching Google will sometimes also help him find the needed entries.
 
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