Windows 7 Virtual Folders?

Question

I've got Steam installed. Steam is installed to c:\Program Files\Steam. Steam downloads various games to a sub folder called SteamApps. The only option available is for steam to download and install apps to the same location as steam. A typical setup could look like this:

C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\common\Game1
C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\common\Game2
C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\common\Game3
C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\common\Game4

Etc.

My drive C is an SSD, so space is an issue. Game1 is very disk intensive, so I need it to remain on drive C, but I've got a terrabyte of space that I'd like Game2 and Game3 to be installed on.

Is there a way to create a virtual folder called "Game2" that really points to my bigger hard drive and to make it in such a way that Steam (or any app really) would be able to browse to the location on drive C and not even realize that it was really accessing drive D: where the virtual folder points to?

So in the end, C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\Common\Game2 would exist as a folder but in reality it maps to D:\Games\Game2.

Answer 1

Try the following:

Open a command prompt with administrative permissions:

mklink /D Virtual_Folder_Here Real_Folder_Here

Example, you want to install something to D:\Games, but you want it to appear as C:\Games.

mklink /D C:\Games D:\Games

This will create a folder D:\Game which also appears as C:\Game. Anything that references C:\Game will be redirected to D:\Game.

Since I am not completely familiar with steam, I have not given an example that matches your exact folder. If steam allows you to pick the folder it installs to (Which due to you not just installing it to the other drive, I am not so sure it does.) you could create they symbolic link first. If however it does not, you may need to do some file-transfers, moving it to the new location and then creating the symbolic link. Example:

Steam installed your game to: C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\common\Game2

Now, you create your folder: D:\GameGoesHere

Then, you copy all the files from the original folder and put it in D:\GameGoesHere, then you can create the link:

mklink /D "C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\common\Game2" "D:\GameGoesHere"

Notice I used quotations this time due to the spacing of "Program Files." Also note that before creating the link the virtual folder must NOT be a real folder. So, if the folder you want to be a link exists, you must delete it first (Not before you copy it, of course!)

Answer 2

Shockingly enough, there's a tool just for this called steam mover, designed to solve the very same issue, which works in windows 7 .It really is a cunningly disguised way of doing symlinks easily. Basically it will move the files automatically and do a symlink for you, so everything seems to be where steam expects it, in C: but its really elsewhere.

I'd note this will only work on windows 7 and vista since MS added symlinks with those versions of windows