Change "My Games" Environmental Variable?

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TW93

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Nov 26, 2012
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Well I tried to post this on the official Windows/Microsoft forums, but their "Submit" button is broken. Just as unfortunate is the fact that the "Report Site Bugs" page works off of the same system and is therefore, also broken. So here I am and here's my question:

I want games, by default, to save to C:\Users\[user]\Games rather than C:\Users\[user]\My Documents\My Games. How do I change this? A step-by-step process would be wonderful. And please don't say "Change it in the games .ini" because I tried that. Some games don't like it.
 
Solution
DarkSable
Okay, that's fine. It won't work for all games, but there are some things you can try. No need to get snappy about it.

What version of windows are you running?
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DarkSable

DarkSable

Judicious
Sep 27, 2012
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...you expect there to just be a universal solution?

Every game is going to have a wildly different way of changing that, if you even can at all.

I suggest you set aside your OCD (I understand, it's hard, I do it too) and just let the game work the way it was (probably poorly) coded.
 
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TW93

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Nov 26, 2012
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Unfortunately, there's more to it than just being picky. I have reasons for wanting to change it.
I play old games from before the "My Games' path was even used and they still know to save there. This tells me that Windows tells them where to save (i.e. via a referenced path, likely using an environmental variable to specify the user a such). This means that if you change where Windows tells it to save, you change where it will save.

Please, no more unhelpful replies.
 
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TW93

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Nov 26, 2012
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Forget it. I found a shell extension to create hardlinks for me. Not that I'm ungrateful, DarkSable, but your post was not helpful in the least. In fact in this same amount of time it took for me to read your post, I found an answer while researching a different topic.
 
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TW93

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Nov 26, 2012
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Windows 8 (Standard; System Builder). Sorry, I thought you were trying to be a smarta*s. Thanks for trying.
Actually, I just would up switching up my Libraries. It's now guaranteed to work. It is unfortunate that Windows does not have an option (maybe in Computer Management) to change such paths manually.
And Microsoft was the one who started the whole "My Games" saving trend, which utterly sucks.
 
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k1114

k1114

Titan
May 2, 2010
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You could just change the hard link of just the my games folder instead of the whole my documents folder. In cmd type:
mklink /J C:\Users\[user]\My Documents\My Games C:\Users\[user]\Games

Changing hard links does in fact work on all games. You don't get an easy ui to change it like the libraries but cmd gets the job done.
 
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TW93

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Nov 26, 2012
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Thanks guys. I'm gonna stop tinkering before I break my Windows (again) and let the Libraries handle it. I just want easy access and have all of my games 1-click away. I seem to have accomplished this. All Units: RTB :)
 
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