Moving P3Ds Libraries to a Seperate Harddrive

[Hansaspeed 18]

I am about to get a new PC. Unfortunately I was only able to afford a 250gb ssd for the sim and my system. I plan to use a 2tb HDD and a 1 tb hdd (Both cannibalized from my old build). Would there be a way to move all of the P3D Libraries which are by default located in c/users/documents to a separate harddrive? I read this article, but I am not sure of what issues it could bring: The Ken Kaniff Show

[mawibo 33]

Hi ?,

I don't know what you mean by 'libraries', but if you want to move the '[Document]\Prepar3D v3/4 files' folder to another drive, you can create a symbolic link to a folder on another drive or move the complete documents folder to another drive.

Maarten

[downscc 1,327]

I'd hesitate doing the directly link thing because installers don't recognize it.  I ran into that problem when I tried to relocate ProgramDate which has become bloated with the Programcache... this is where Microsoft stores a copy of every installer you run so it can uninstall things.  For example, there is 11 GB in Programcache with a copy of the P3D installer regardless of if you keep a copy.

[mawibo 33]

Hi Dan,

I was talking about a symbolic link for a user created folder or a folder created by an application and that works perfectly fine. Moving the complete Documents folder is common practice as well  as long as you do it as described by the link I provided: it's an OS feature. Relocating the ProgramData is something completely different, not an OS feature, and indeed not recommended.

Maarten

[Hansaspeed 18]

 Maarten. Exactly what I needed. Thanks a lot!

[downscc 1,327]

On 7/23/2017 at 2:21 AM, mawibo said:

Hi Dan,

I was talking about a symbolic link for a user created folder or a folder created by an application and that works perfectly fine. Moving the complete Documents folder is common practice as well  as long as you do it as described by the link I provided: it's an OS feature. Relocating the ProgramData is something completely different, not an OS feature, and indeed not recommended.

Maarten

Actually you can move Programdata with a symbolic link and it works.  Not sure why you say it doesn't.  The only reason I stopped using it is because msi installers don't recognize symbolic links, regardless of it is a programdata or a documents reference.  Use of a symbolic link for documents in the event an msi installer wants to write to a document folder will result in an error.  Not all installers, just the Microsoft msi installer.

[mawibo 33]

8 minutes ago, downscc said:

Actually you can move Programdata with a symbolic link and it works.  Not sure why you say it doesn't.  The only reason I stopped using it is because msi installers don't recognize symbolic links, regardless of it is a programdata or a documents reference.  Use of a symbolic link for documents in the event an msi installer wants to write to a document folder will result in an error.  Not all installers, just the Microsoft msi installer.

Hi Dan,

I don't know why you think that .msi installers cannot cope with a folder that is in fact a symbolic link to another folder. It's not true. I just tried it with my own SimLauncherX installer and it works perfectly fine. Maybe a symbolic link works for the ProgramData folder, but I personally would not take the risk. The ProgramData folder contains essential OS files in contrast to the Documents, Downloads, Videos etc. folders that only contain user created files.

Maarten

[downscc 1,327]

4 hours ago, mawibo said:

Hi Dan,

I don't know why you think that .msi installers cannot cope with a folder that is in fact a symbolic link to another folder. It's not true. I just tried it with my own SimLauncherX installer and it works perfectly fine. Maybe a symbolic link works for the ProgramData folder, but I personally would not take the risk. The ProgramData folder contains essential OS files in contrast to the Documents, Downloads, Videos etc. folders that only contain user created files.

Maarten

I specifically recall finding the information regarding msi installer and symbolic links, more precisely directory link, in a micorsoft forum when I was troubleshooting why an installer failed.  That could be dated or wrong material, I hadn't gone any further with it. I considered a directory link to relocate the programcache, the really not so vital microsoft dump yard for images of installers that i uses to repair and uninstall programs.  I'd rather use the original installer and not double the space required for an installer, not insignificant with something like a 11GB installer for P3D, but that option is closed.  Again, I could be wrong and have wrong information and I only know this little because of one specific task I want to accomplish.  I am not a programmer.

PS:  The interesting thing is the relocated programcache worked for all tests I ran using control panel install and repair and remove.... it only failed with a new installer because it couldn't see the link.

[mawibo 33]

Hi Dan,

You claim that "... msi installers don't recognize symbolic links, regardless of it is a programdata or a documents reference", but that is simply not true. Symbolic links (directory links do not exist btw, only directory junctions) are an NTFS file system feature and transparent to applications (installer or not) and even the OS itself. The package cache is used to uninstall, change and/or repair applications. You can relocate this folder to another drive, but if you do, you need to create a symbolic link in the ProgramData folder with the exact "Package Cache" name. If you subsequently relocate the actual Package Cache folder again, the link is broken and uninstalls/repairs will fail. Here's a good explanation of hard links, junctions and symbolic links.

Maarten