Steam Program on D; Game Files on C

[agent_insidious]

I've been using Steam for a couple years now off and on. I built a brand new gaming rig and have crossed from XBOX to PC full-time now. Obviously, Steam has been an intricate part of this. I have two M.2 disks that I installed as part of my build. A 500 GB C:\ and a 1 TB D:\.

My plan was to put nothing but the OS (Win 10 Pro) and non-gaming Programs on the C:\ and put everything game related on the D:\. Steam has complicated this for me.

I downloaded and installed Steam and pointed the install folder to my D:\. That went perfect. I downloaded and installed American Truck Simulator and also pointed that to my D:\. After install I noticed the D:\Steam\steamapps\common\American Truck Simulator has the "bin" and "licenses" folders in there, as well as some .scs files and such.

I launched the game and noticed my computer (or Steam) created another American Truck Simulator folder in C:\users\%username%\Documents\American Truck Simulator. This particular folder is the folder that houses my profiles, music, game settings, backups and mods.

I copied the American Truck Simulator folder on my C:\ to my D:\ and deleted the C:\ portion. I launched the game again, went back to my C:\ and noticed the American Truck Simulator folder re-created itself in my User > Documents directory again.

The same exact thing happened for Euro Truck Sim and Farming Simulator '19. Certainly this can be changed to where when the game launches, it can create those files on something other than the system drive?

I'd appreciate any help!

[Crazy Tiger]

Games create save folders, not Steam. Ask the game devs.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Don't install Steam in Program Files?

[Spawn of Totoro]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

Games create save folders, not Steam. Ask the game devs.

This.

Games will commonly use the Documents folder for saves and settings. Aside form the Documents folder, the %appdata (one of the sub-folders) folder is also often used for such information.

There will always be some information related to what ever you have installed, located on the main OS drive. That is not something one can avoid and it is not something that Steam/Valve can prevent. Some parts are required to be on the C drive and other are put there on a developer's decision.

[Overseer]

Its a well known issue and it all comes down to missing a standard. There is simply no agreement that all saves/options should go into one specific place.
It is possible to move your entire user folder to other drives. But that will include anything and may even cause new problems.

[ReBoot]

Originally posted by Overseer:

Its a well known issue and it all comes down to missing a standard. There is simply no agreement that all saves/options should go into one specific place.
It is possible to move your entire user folder to other drives. But that will include anything and may even cause new problems.

As a matter of fact, therr is a standard. The standard is that user-generated data is best kept @ %userprofile% which is exactly what the game in the OP is doing.

Originally posted by jdickerson0811:

I've been using Steam for a couple years now off and on. I built a brand new gaming rig and have crossed from XBOX to PC full-time now. Obviously, Steam has been an intricate part of this. I have two M.2 disks that I installed as part of my build. A 500 GB C:\ and a 1 TB D:\.

My plan was to put nothing but the OS (Win 10 Pro) and non-gaming Programs on the C:\ and put everything game related on the D:\. Steam has complicated this for me.

I downloaded and installed Steam and pointed the install folder to my D:\. That went perfect. I downloaded and installed American Truck Simulator and also pointed that to my D:\. After install I noticed the D:\Steam\steamapps\common\American Truck Simulator has the "bin" and "licenses" folders in there, as well as some .scs files and such.

I launched the game and noticed my computer (or Steam) created another American Truck Simulator folder in C:\users\%username%\Documents\American Truck Simulator. This particular folder is the folder that houses my profiles, music, game settings, backups and mods.

I copied the American Truck Simulator folder on my C:\ to my D:\ and deleted the C:\ portion. I launched the game again, went back to my C:\ and noticed the American Truck Simulator folder re-created itself in my User > Documents directory again.

The same exact thing happened for Euro Truck Sim and Farming Simulator '19. Certainly this can be changed to where when the game launches, it can create those files on something other than the system drive?

I'd appreciate any help!

Move your documents folder to D. Windows has a built-in capability to do that. Another hint, keep the games inside the Steam folder which you keep on D. You'll avoid a couple of possible issues that way without losing anytihng.

[Darren]

Move the folder to D and create a link to it on the C drive. I did that for Unity that insisted on installing GBs of data to a folder I couldn't otherwise move.

[agent_insidious]

Thanks everyone. I moved my Documents folder to the D:\ and haven't experienced any issues this far.

Have a great day!