Where Stuff Goes?

[Kala]

Yesterday, I took the plunge and took 90% of my Sims 1 stuff off of my computer. Actually, my Sims 1 game and back up files were stored on an exturnal hard drive.  I would like to reinstall Sims 2 on the drive that Sims 1. How much stuff is going to go in Simworld and how much stuff is going on the C drive?  I probebly woln't reinstall my game if most of files and stuff end up on my c drive.

[Ness]

I suspect that in order to tell your game that the EA game folder that is usually in MyDocuments is now going to be somewhere else you will either need to completely uninstall and tell it then, or mess around in the registry.

[jrd]

The only way to get Sims 2 stuff off C:\ is to move ‘my documents’ entirely. And that can be done from the properties.

I really don't like EA Games and Microsoft Games placing stuff there… I prefer to keep all program stuff in the program folder (same reason I hate appdata).

[Kala]

I think I'm going to leave things alone.  I feel a bit ooky about moving the my documents folder.  Thanks people

[jrd]

For the technically inclined, you could of course mount a partition on the NTFS mountpoint C:\Documents and Settings\profile\My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\ (or up one or two levels), and therewith reserve TS2 data to its own partition.
I am not going to explain how though: if you don't know how to you shouldn't even try. It is too easy to mess up your system by messing with mountpoints.

[gjam]

I really don't like EA Games and Microsoft Games placing stuff there… I prefer to keep all program stuff in the program folder (same reason I hate appdata).

I'm just the opposite--I prefer keeping data separate from executables.  I think sticking the game data in My Documents is a reasonable default for players who don't understand paths and directories and don't care to learn. 

HOWEVER, since it isn't a document and is huge, I really wish they had included the option of changing the location for the rest of us.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, my Documents folder and my E Drive are actually one and the same - all my sims2 and sims1 stuff is now stored in it, plus programme back-ups and all sorts, and the game has no difficulty finding anything.

[Ness]

You can change the locations, but it needs to be done on the first install of the base game.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Mine wasn't.

[jrd]

Nah. You can change the location of My Docs at any point, just remember to copy your data there or you start from scratch.

[ZephyrZodiac]

Well, all I did was right click on My Docs and told it to go there, and it spent a couple of hours just moving itself and everything in it across.  Didn't lose so much as a lippie or a blusher!