Programs on HDD saving some files to SSD - Help please

TheEternal

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I recently bought an SSD for use as a boot drive and I put a few games on it. I installed windows on my SSD (C) and formatted my hard drive (F). Since I assume the user folder is put on the boot drive by default, it's on my C drive. However, I've noticed some programs and games put certain files in my user folder, even though the program or game is installed on my F drive.

For example, Call of Duty: World at War has a player config file and a mod folder that's stored in my user folder, even though I have it installed on my hard drive. This is very problematic because the mods I want for this game get to be extremely large (before formatting I had ~45GB worth of mods for this game) and I do not have that kind of space to spare on my 120GB SSD. Also, I've noticed Origin files placed on the C drive even though I have origin installed on my F drive.

Is there a way to move my user folder to my hard drive? Or is there a way to move the mod folder for CoD:WaW to another location and tell the game to access it from there? Any help is appreciated. Thanks.
 
Solution

USAFRet

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For your /Users/ folder, I would recommend against moving that. Some other applications, including Windows Update, may have issues with that.

Look in the settings for the game. You may be able to tell it the mod files live elsewhere.
 

TheEternal

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It doesn't look like this is an option...I looked myself as well as tried figuring it out online.

This may sound confusing, but is there a way to "link" the folder to somewhere else? For example have the mods actually stored on my F drive, but when I go through my user folder on my C drive and follow through AppData and mods, it directs to the location of the mods on the F drive? As a way to make the game think it's accessing the files on my C drive, even though it'd really be redirected to my F drive?
 

USAFRet

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Possibly. Look into 'symlinks'
Here: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/16226/complete-guide-to-symbolic-links-symlinks-on-windows-or-linux/

Personally, that would be my last choice as a way to get around that space issue.
 
Solution

TheEternal

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Thanks, but why is that?
 

USAFRet

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It's just that I would investigate every other possibility first.
 

TheEternal

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Problem is, I can't really think of any other possibilities. The only options I see are: I keep the mods on my C drive, which would take up lots of space and/or require continuous deleting and re-downloading, I change the location of my user folder to my F drive, or I find a way to make the game (and other programs) think they're looking on that drive when really they're redirected to my F drive.

I think the last option would be easiest and most effective, since I can keep all the files I want in the location that I need them without screwing up my user folder...but if there's a downside to this I'd like to know.
 

TheEternal

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I can confirm that this works. Actually really easy to do, I just had to download/install a program and now I can put files on my HDD to take up space there, yet have windows and my games/programs think they're still on the SSD...same, easy solution I had hoped for without screwing with my user folder. Thanks.