If I upgrade to W8.1 from W7 what happens to my games on the second HD?

Jeffy14

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Hello all!

I have W7 right and an SSD with the system + an HD with most of my games. My question is: If I do a clean install to W8.1, will I be able to play my games after the upgrades? Or it wont work and I will need to re-install them?

THanks a lot
 
Solution
I did the upgrade and didn't have any issues with most of my games, some of my applications had to be reinstalled but as we both stated if they write to the registry and you do an upgrade..that will cause issues.

I've since done clean installs and transfers as I've upgraded my components and I usually just recommend doing a clean install despite having to spend time reinstalling everything.

vagrancyx

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I've done both upgraded and clean installs and its still worked just fine for games/applications installed on a separate hard drive, it really boils down to if the application had registry values written on the C drive (disk you're formatting) as not all of them do this.. In any case you might as well just do an in place upgrade as its quicker..you'd only really need to do a clean format if you' want to free up space or if there are issues.
 

Jeffy14

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I've done both upgraded and clean installs and its still worked just fine for games/applications installed on a separate hard drive, it really boils down to if the application had registry values written on the C drive (disk you're formatting) as not all of them do this.. In any case you might as well just do an in place upgrade as its quicker..you'd only really need to do a clean format if you' want to free up space or if there are issues.

nothing will happen with your games. You can even just upgrade from 7 to 8.1 during the install..don't need to really do a clean one unless you want to.



Ok thanks a lot to you guys: mgilbert and vagrancyx!

Great info.


You had good result with your upgrade? All you games where working? I have stuff like leagues of legends, DOTA 2, Battlefield 4, Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, TitanFall. All of this installed on the HD and not SDD (where the system is).
You really think that with an upgrade they would be available to work?
I am asking you because when I read the Microsoft website about "how to upgrade to W8.1" they said the following:

Once you get the compatibility report, you can decide what you want to keep on your PC. You won't be able to keep programs and settings when you upgrade. Be sure to locate your original program installation discs or purchase confirmation emails if you bought programs online. You'll need these to reinstall your programs after you upgrade to Windows 8.1—this includes, for example, Microsoft Office, Apache OpenOffice, and Adobe programs. It's also a good idea to back up your files at this time, too.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/upgrade-from-windows-7-tutorial
 

vagrancyx

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I did the upgrade and didn't have any issues with most of my games, some of my applications had to be reinstalled but as we both stated if they write to the registry and you do an upgrade..that will cause issues.

I've since done clean installs and transfers as I've upgraded my components and I usually just recommend doing a clean install despite having to spend time reinstalling everything.
 
Solution

Jeffy14

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Thanks a lot
 

rhapdog

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Last time I did a clean re-install with Windows 8.1, I was able to export the pertinent registry entries for the programs I was wanting to keep on my secondary drive. Takes a bit of expertise, and still had to re-install a couple, but once I imported these back into the new registry, most things were working. Of course, I also backed up the %appdata% path for those programs, and any license info in the %ProgramData% path.

Not everything can be salvaged, though. I had some of my more important stuff that I run often on the SSD, and those had to copied to another drive, then copied back after the re-install.
 

Jeffy14

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Wow cool! Only problem is that I dont have the expertise :)