Relocating common files to new drive

[Zilljah]

I created a new partition (E:/Steam) on a second drive to run games from. I then relocated all my installed games to the new drive, which works fine. But, I forgot about the files for my uninstalled games which still remain on C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/Common. Can I move these files to the E: drive manually, or do I have to install each game, then relocate it to the drive?

For instance, I played Life Is Strange, and deleted it later. Now, I want to move the save file from the Common directory on C: to the E:/Steam/steamapps/Common directory, without having to reinstall the game right now. Can I manually move the file from the old directory to the new? Or, should I reinstall the game, use the relocate function to move the file and game, then uninstall the game if I'm not going to play it?

[rawWwRrr]

Ignore "common" as you'll make a common mistake. Often those who only focus on the common folder miss all of the appmanifest files in the steamapps folder that are also required.

Shut Steam down completely.

Copy your C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps to E:/Steam/steamapps.

Once completed, relaunch Steam and let it find the games that were originally on the C: drive. Steam may run a verification on the files and "update" them but it shouldn't think to download the entire game again.

When you've verified that Steam can see them on E:, you can delete the ../steamapps folder from the C: drive to relieve some space.

Alternately, you can add the C:/Program Files (x86)/Steam/ as a separate Steam Library folder and just use Steam's internal move folder function.

edit: made some clarifications to storage locations and details.

[Zilljah]

Thanks!

[MoonlightSkulls]

But what if the Steam file is in C:Program Files (x86)\Steam\ and when I open the file, there's something called "vstdlib_s64.dll" and when I open it, it says im attempting to open a System File and it may cause harm to my device but the main point is that I wanna install Steam into my DATA (E:) files so I can play American Truck Simulator and without having 2 files in different folders bc im thinking have the same 2 files but in different folders will cause damage to my device

[rawWwRrr]

Originally posted by MoonlightSkulls:

But what if the Steam file is in C:Program Files (x86)\Steam\ and when I open the file, there's something called "vstdlib_s64.dll" and when I open it, it says im attempting to open a System File and it may cause harm to my device but the main point is that I wanna install Steam into my DATA (E:) files so I can play American Truck Simulator and without having 2 files in different folders bc im thinking have the same 2 files but in different folders will cause damage to my device

You most likely have a thumbs.db file in multiple folders all over the hard drives that haven't done anything dangerous to your PC. Having a file in more than one location does nothing harmful to your PC.

[Fall2YrDoom]

I would run steam on that other drive as well, no need to have it in c:. Make sure that you g to settings and all files and associated files go to E: or whatever you made it. This way you can go over to a friends or to another work station and play at will..

[Fall2YrDoom]

I found no lagg issues or anything.. might be due to it being a 3.1 +++++

[Stephanie]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.