Remove The Option To Create Steam Libraries

[Bear]

I have 2 hard drives and thought it would be a good idea to create a Steam library on hard drive D: instead of trying to save everything on my 120 GB SSD on C:

Little did I know this would create nothing but problems, and hours upon hours of unnecessary troubleshooting in the future. Steam itself doesn't want to install games into the steam library anymore, it instead will always create a steam folder in D: program files(x86) and install games there. Steam also doesn't allow you to choose where to install games, it just says it will merge into 1 folder when you try (which is clearly not true). I can pick either C: or D: but not where in C: or D:

So now all of my steam games are scattered across 3 different steam folders, one on C:, and two on D: and steam itself doesn't know what to do. If i delete any of the folders, Steam just creates new ones wherever it pleases. How it decides what games go into the Steam library, and what goes into program files(x86) is a mystery to me.

Randomly it will change directories it is trying to run a game from, and FORCES me to "update," which is just the game fully reinstalling into the directory Steam felt like using. When this happens, you are unable to move the folders to a different steam folder since the game.exe will be running until you wait for it to fully reinstall for no reason. Once the unnecessary reinstall begins, you can't stop it.

TL;DR REMOVE THE OPTION TO CREATE STEAM LIBRARIES since Steam can't handle it, and it will entirely ruin your gaming experience until you do a full system restore, and then let Steam store games in whatever inconvenient file location it chooses for you.

[JPMcMillen]

Been using it for years, have had zero issues. Even when I had games purposely spread across 3 different drives. Currently I keep Steam on the C: drive, but keep my games on a dedicated high speed drive that runs faster than my boot drive.

[♔.sir.lunchalot.♔]

I got games spread over 4 drives and never had a problem in years.

[Bear]

Originally posted by JPMcMillen:

Been using it for years, have had zero issues. Even when I had games purposely spread across 3 different drives. Currently I keep Steam on the C: drive, but keep my games on a dedicated high speed drive that runs faster than my boot drive.

Originally I only had 1 Steam folder on C: and 1 Steam folder (the Steam Library) on D:

Did not have issues with the Steam library up until a couple years ago when Steam on its own created another folder in D:program files(x86) and started installing some games there, leaving me with 2 Steam folders on the same hard drive. I can't even choose where the games are installed for some reason, so I don't know what I could have done to cause this.

Coincidentally I haven't been able to enjoy playing any Steam games for about 2 years since I spend far more time troubleshooting than playing.

[JPMcMillen]

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥:

Originally posted by JPMcMillen:

Been using it for years, have had zero issues. Even when I had games purposely spread across 3 different drives. Currently I keep Steam on the C: drive, but keep my games on a dedicated high speed drive that runs faster than my boot drive.

Originally I only had 1 Steam folder on C: and 1 Steam folder (the Steam Library) on D:

Did not have issues with the Steam library up until a couple years ago when Steam on its own created another folder in D:program files(x86) and started installing some games there, leaving me with 2 Steam folders on the same hard drive. I can't even choose where the games are installed for some reason, so I don't know what I could have done to cause this.

Coincidentally I haven't been able to enjoy playing any Steam games for about 2 years since I spend far more time troubleshooting than playing.

Part of the problem is that Steam now only allows one SteamLibrary per drive, and you have two on the D: drive and that's messing with Steam.

As to what caused Steam to try installing games to D:\program files (x86), that sounds more like a Windows problem. Namely that the default location for older x86 software was changed from C:\program files (x86) to D:\program files (x86). I know this can be done because I did this on a computer years ago where the boot drive was really small, so I changed it so all software defaulted to D:\program files, which was a vastly larger drive. But unless other (non-Steam) software keeps defaulting to the \program files (x86) on the D:, that's not the problem.

Unfortunately, you may need to uninstall Steam and try reinstalling it. Yes, this may mess with some game installs and require reinstalling them, but that may be the only real fix.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Move all your Steamapps folders to a safe place before doing that.