Can I force Steam to install games on a drive that isn't C when in Big Picture mode?
I'm setting up an HTPC/Steam machine. It has a 60GB SSD drive for C (wow, small right?). There are several other drives, totalling about 2TB. I'm using Steam in big picture mode. When I install games via big picture I am not given a choice of install location, it looks like all the games are going in C.
Is there a way to force games to be installed on the F drive, for instance? I can see that I can set up a SteamLibrary folder on F (and I have) but I get no option to install on F when I install via Big Picture. What's the best way to solve this situation? I will run out of space on my C drive very quickly.
The reason this question is different from the other one: the other question is about installing games via Steam in standard mode. This question is about installing games in Big Picture mode -- they are very different experiences.
Windows 7.
Best Answer
So the answer is sort of. You can't choose an install location or set a default location for big picture mode (at the moment). There is no configuration for this, it will always use the default install location which is the drive Steam is installed on.
And that's the key. You can move your steam installation to a different disk and it will default to that location instead of to the one on your SSD.
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How do you make Steam recognize install games on a different drive?
Click the STEAM LIBRARY FOLDERS button under Content Libraries. In the Storage Manager window, click the + icon beside the existing storage/drive locations. Click the drop-down in Add a New Steam Library Folder dialog, and select the Let me choose another location.Can I download Steam games to drive D?
To move a game in your library, right-click it and then click \u201cProperties.\u201d Click the \u201cLocal Files\u201d tab and click the \u201cMove Install Folder\u201d button. Select the Steam library you want to move the game to and click the \u201cMove\u201d button. You're done.Should I install Steam games on C or D?
You can install steam games anywhere you want on your computer. But it is preferable to install it in specified by steam(C:\\Program Files(x86)\\steam\\steamapps\\).Can I have Steam on C drive and games on D drive?
since steam can use the game files even if copied and pasted, keeping them separate means you won't have to download them again if you have to reinstall windows. you'd simply point steam at those same files once done and not have to wait for them to re-download.How to Fix Steam Games Not Being Detected (No Extra Hard Drive Space Needed)
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Answer 2
I hope I can update this to be relevant to September 2016. Short background I reinstalled my OS (Win 10) and Steam was all ran from my D drive and all of my games.
I reinstalled Steam on my C:\ Drive and was able to get it to read my library from my D drive; in the app no less.
I went to the "Steam" menu in the upper left-hand corner, then went to "Settings", selected the "Downloads" section and clicked on the "Steam Library Folders".
From there I clicked "Add Library Folder" and found my "Steam" folder in my D:. NOTE: I could not make it specific to the "common" folder or anything, I had to select the entire "Steam" folder.
Then when I had the C:\ and D:\ drives recognized, the last step was to right-click on the D:\ and make it my default. All 36 games I had installed were recognized and ready to go.
I hope this helps anybody not wanting to reinstall every game or wanting to keep the Steam application on an SSD and the games on another drive.
Answer 3
Before Steam supported multiple library folder I would install steam to a different place than C:\program files (eg. g:\steam), I don't know if this will still work but it could be worth trying as steam is pretty great a recognising games in libraries from previous installs now (I just install win10 and after adding my old steam library to a new install it just had to check for dx etc when launching any of the games in it)
Answer 4
One VERY important thing to force the discovery : Discovered that by lurjing around in the steam Files.
When Steams restart downloading the game, check it's ID number in ...\steamapps\Doanloading[folder ID eg:237895] Then while steam is closed, delete the ...\steamapps\appmanifest_[ID].acf
Restart steams and you're good to go. If you edit the this file for curiosity, you'll find that it sotres the folder name to download to, how much you already downloaded etc... By deleting it, you just force steam to go through all the process again ;-)
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