Help me install the game on an external hard drive

[nocomment]

I want to install the game on my external hard drive.  The game itself installs fine, but all the user files end up in "My Documents" on drive C.

This is a real problem, since I want the Downloads folder on my external drive.  (It has a lot more space.)  Any advice?  I created a "My Documents" folder on the external drive and moved everything over, but the game just recreates the files on drive C when it runs.

[Renatus]

I know it's possible if you have Windows XP to make the My Documents folder reside on a drive other than C. It will only be for that particular account; if you regularly put other things in the My Documents folder and/or take the hard drive places you may want to create a seperate user account just for playing Sims2.

To change its location, open the Start Menu and right-click the My Documents icon, then choose "Properties..." A window will pop up with a text field showing the current location and a button reading "Move..." Click that button, and you can choose where to put the My Documents folder.

[nocomment]

Ah, that makes sense.  Thanks for the help!

I have to say, I'm really annoyed that EA used the "My Documents" folder for the save files.  I at least think they should give us a choice of where their files go.  My feeling is, it's *MY* documents, not EA's documents.

Luckily I don't use the folder that much, so it won't hurt to move it.

[Renatus]

A lot of games have done that in the past, eh, five years or so, not so much before then (as far as I can tell at least).  I think why they do it is so that people who share a computer with others can have different user accounts on the OS, and by putting the savegames and custom content in the My Documents folder rather than the game folder, it keeps them seperate so there is no worrying about someone else playing or deleting one's savegames. However, considering that most computers seem to come partitioned with the C drive much smaller than the other partitions, this generally means the C drive fills up really, really fast.

I prefer it when games keep the savedgames and user content within the game folder, so I only have to concern myself with installing the game on the biggest partition and not fussing around with the My Documents folder. I feel bad for the people still using an OS that doesn't allow the damn folder to be moved, or don't know it can be moved! Before I found out I was down to hundreds of megabytes on my C drive and my computer was quite unhappy.

[radiophonic]

I can't remember if maxis allows for custom installations or not, but if they do, you'll want to select your remote drive as your installation folder.

If not, I'm fairly certain that the path data for the game will be written to windows registry and should you move the installation folder, you'll need to tweak those entries before the game will work otherwise it will look in c:\program files\etc. for its executables and data files.

I'm fairly certain that they don't allow remote installation since you're only allowed to use the game on one machine and running from a remote share would allow more than one machine/person to play. It would require a significant amount of registry hacking for sure.