Steam Question about how/where Steam installs games

I just bought a new game and Steam wants to install it on C: by default. I can find no way to tell Steam to use my newer, larger, disk that I just installed. Is Steam so stupid that it can only install on the default HD, or is there a config option somewhere?

Thanks,

Robert

 

I think the option is only available when you first install Steam IIRC.

 

As I suspected... The developers of Steam are utter incompetents. Literally whenever I hear "Steam" being discussed my mind converts the word to the phrase "Steam'ing pile of dog crap."

Seriously: they must have to really work hard to make Steam so slow and ponderous, not to mention the crappy design decisions such as this.

 

Works fine for me and countless others.

Steam stores all game data within its own folder.
Copy/paste your existing game data to another folder temporarily, reinstall Steam on the bigger hard drive, copy the game data back into the new Steam installation, continue as normal.
Job done.

It's generally better to go and try these things or educate yourself on the matter first before ranting on like an uninformed sensationalist.

 

Or find the name of the folder that the game links to, go into the Steam\steamapps folder and create a symlink to a folder on your bigger harddrive. Run steam and kapow! One game installed to another drive.

I do however, agree that Steam should be able to handle installing games to different folders.

 

Thanks for the helpful comments. Zurechial, if your definition of "uninformed sensationalist" is one who expects installer software to offer the very reasonable option of easy install to any hard disk, and not require hacking and praying using unsupported mechanisms, then yes, I'm one.

I have a support email in to Valve to see what they say.

 

If its any help from what i remember you can just copy and past the whole steam folder wherever you want and it (+ your games) will still work fine... which is probably why its not an option have games installed in random folders.

 

Yup, easy way to do it at LANParties too, to save on internet bandwidth, just copy someone elses steam folder ot yours, and provided you've bought the game it'll run it. An educated guess as to why games are all stored to one folder would be that they may have some interdependancies?

RwD

 

You can easily migrate your steam games to another hard disc. You can't split your steam install on different hard discs however

Read this on how to move your steam games to another hard drive
http://www.hlfallout.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=56746

 

Slep, thanks. I received an answer from my ticket I filed as well. To their credit, the person who answered me was polite and gave a useful answer:



Please observe the following process to move your Steam installation between hard drives or machines:

1. Exit the Steam client application.
2. Browse to the Steam installation folder (C:\Program Files\Steam by default) for the Steam installation you would like to move.
3. Move the steamapps folder from the Steam installation folder to your desktop.
4. Review the Uninstalling Steam topic for instructions to uninstall Steam (this must be done to remove your old Steam installation settings from the Windows Registry).
5. Review the Installing Steam topic for instructions to re-install Steam to the desired location.
6. Move the steamapps folder into the new Steam installation folder to copy all of your downloaded game content, settings, and saved games to the new location.
7. Start Steam and log in to your existing Steam account to confirm that the move was successful.


It's very unfortunate one cannot split installs across multiple disks. But after my 24+ patch of WoW is complete (since I re installed it on the larger disk to make space for Steam) I'll see about moving Steam.

 

Bingo. I'd rather have them in one place rather than multiple copies of the source engine strewn about the place.

 

That's why I suggested symlinking; it's implemented by the filesystem so the OS just sees another folder.

 

The way I see it - the manner in which this was resolved yet again adds another notch (of many many many notches) on my belt on how great steam actually is!

 

tl;dr

games are installed under Program Files/Steam/steamapps/<username>/<Game Name>

saves are also in the "steamapps" folder

 

Yeah, I think so too. I hated it when it first came out but now the way it manages itself makes sense, in the sense that I don't have to baby it along instead. Great system and still the ONLY credible DRM around...

 

need I remind anyone

 

So you obviously didn't even bother to read the first post either, as that didn't even answer the OP's question. Always before posting!

(Yay, I've been wanting to use that smilie for ages!).

In case you didn't know, Steam sells games, not music

 

...and yet they are probably millionaires too...

What an objective and reasoned opinion!!

 

1) Install to C:\
2) Copy Steam folder to Drive XYZ:\
3) Problem Solved and quit cryin'

Steam is almost completely independent from the registry so you could place it anywhere on the drive and it will work. When moving my Steam folder between fresh OS installations all I had to do was double-click the Steam executable and choose to install the service then everything would work.

 

Foolish me; I was expecting Steam to work like commercial quality software...