Re: Can I move the Bioware folder from C:Documents to my D Drive?

by lonori
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Can I move the Bioware folder from C:Documents to my D Drive?

★★★ Novice

My C Drive is a Solid State Drive and I would really like to make more room. Is there a way to move the Bioware folder to another drive without messing everything up? Any help would be appreciated Standard smile

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Re: Can I move the Bioware folder from C:Documents to my D Drive?

[ Edited ]
★ Guide

Edit 2015/10/04: There have been some who have had problems with the change in the configuration file as explained here in the original. However, I would recommend you to try it first since it keeps the changes to the Dragon Age Origins program. Nevertheless, try the next solution of making a symbolic link instead (from my own reply on page 2):


@lonori wrote:

I'm really sad to here that it doesn't seem to be working for people. Furthermore, I can't come up with any other configuration setting to change. However, there's always the solution that works outside Dragon Age Origins (on a operative system level). The idea is to create a symbolic link between the current folder path to where you want the stuff to be stored. This will make it look like there is a folder in My Documents that is called Bioware while in reality it only links to another folder stored somewhere else (kind of like the famous shortcuts). In windows you do it by doing the following:

  1. Move your Bioware folder to its new location.
  2. Open a Command line prompt (press windows button + r on the keyboard, the enter cmd in the run prompt and press enter).
  3. Make sure that there is no folder called "C:\users\<your account name>\Documents\Bioware" before you do the next step (since it, potentially, could overwrite it. Not used to terminal in Windows but it definitely has the power to do so).
  4. Type in: mklink /J "C:\users\<your account name>\Documents\Bioware" "<new location of the folder, e.g: D:\SaveGames\Bioware>" (the "/J" tells the linker that it's going to be a dictionary junction, the first string is the location that you want to make a link from and the last string is the target of the link).
  5. Done!

In the case that you only want to move a subpart of the Bioware folder you'll just have to change the first string (and maybe you would want to change the second string to point to a more nicely named folder). Furthermore, on mac (and linux for that matter) the command would be: ln -s source_file target_file.


 

 

Original message:

 

You could move the file but you would have to change the config file so that it reads (and writes hopefully) from the new folder.


Haven't worked with .xml and I haven't tried this on my own so I can't guarantee that it will work, but I think it will. Just make backups before you try.

 

  1. Make a backup on everything you change and store it somewhere safe.
  2. Copy the folder to the new drive.
  3. Open the file DAOriginsConfig.xml in any text editor (notepad, notepad++, emacs, etc.). The file is located in {game directory}\data\
  4. Don't forget to make a backup!
  5. Replace all found entries of <string name="USERDATA_DIR">${CSIDL_PERSONAL}\BioWare\Dragon Age</string> with
    <string name="USERDATA_DIR">NEW_DIR</string> where NEW_DIR is the directory you copied the folder to, eg. D:\Games\Saves\BioWare\DragonAge
  6. Make a quick test to see if it works to load.
  7. Make a new save.
  8. Restart the game and check so the new save worked properly.
  9. Save all the previous backups just in case that you encounter an unknown error later on.
  10. Remove the old save folder if you needed space
  11. It would be kind if you could report if it works so that the rest of the community knows.

Good luck and don't be afraid to ask if there's anything else you want to ask about,

Lonori

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Message 2 of 17 (16,693 Views)

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Re: Can I move the Bioware folder from C:Documents to my D Drive?

[ Edited ]
★ Guide

Edit 2015/10/04: There have been some who have had problems with the change in the configuration file as explained here in the original. However, I would recommend you to try it first since it keeps the changes to the Dragon Age Origins program. Nevertheless, try the next solution of making a symbolic link instead (from my own reply on page 2):


@lonori wrote:

I'm really sad to here that it doesn't seem to be working for people. Furthermore, I can't come up with any other configuration setting to change. However, there's always the solution that works outside Dragon Age Origins (on a operative system level). The idea is to create a symbolic link between the current folder path to where you want the stuff to be stored. This will make it look like there is a folder in My Documents that is called Bioware while in reality it only links to another folder stored somewhere else (kind of like the famous shortcuts). In windows you do it by doing the following:

  1. Move your Bioware folder to its new location.
  2. Open a Command line prompt (press windows button + r on the keyboard, the enter cmd in the run prompt and press enter).
  3. Make sure that there is no folder called "C:\users\<your account name>\Documents\Bioware" before you do the next step (since it, potentially, could overwrite it. Not used to terminal in Windows but it definitely has the power to do so).
  4. Type in: mklink /J "C:\users\<your account name>\Documents\Bioware" "<new location of the folder, e.g: D:\SaveGames\Bioware>" (the "/J" tells the linker that it's going to be a dictionary junction, the first string is the location that you want to make a link from and the last string is the target of the link).
  5. Done!

In the case that you only want to move a subpart of the Bioware folder you'll just have to change the first string (and maybe you would want to change the second string to point to a more nicely named folder). Furthermore, on mac (and linux for that matter) the command would be: ln -s source_file target_file.


 

 

Original message:

 

You could move the file but you would have to change the config file so that it reads (and writes hopefully) from the new folder.


Haven't worked with .xml and I haven't tried this on my own so I can't guarantee that it will work, but I think it will. Just make backups before you try.

 

  1. Make a backup on everything you change and store it somewhere safe.
  2. Copy the folder to the new drive.
  3. Open the file DAOriginsConfig.xml in any text editor (notepad, notepad++, emacs, etc.). The file is located in {game directory}\data\
  4. Don't forget to make a backup!
  5. Replace all found entries of <string name="USERDATA_DIR">${CSIDL_PERSONAL}\BioWare\Dragon Age</string> with
    <string name="USERDATA_DIR">NEW_DIR</string> where NEW_DIR is the directory you copied the folder to, eg. D:\Games\Saves\BioWare\DragonAge
  6. Make a quick test to see if it works to load.
  7. Make a new save.
  8. Restart the game and check so the new save worked properly.
  9. Save all the previous backups just in case that you encounter an unknown error later on.
  10. Remove the old save folder if you needed space
  11. It would be kind if you could report if it works so that the rest of the community knows.

Good luck and don't be afraid to ask if there's anything else you want to ask about,

Lonori

Message 2 of 17 (16,694 Views)

Re: Can I move the Bioware folder from C:Documents to my D Drive?

★★★ Newbie

Hello,

 

 Can you Help me? I have tried to change my saving location from C: (SSD) to A: (HDD), however every time I save in the game, a new BioWare Folder is still saved at C: Documents. The new directoiry address, which I am trying to move to is  A:\Documents\BioWare\Mass Effect

Message 3 of 17 (13,363 Views)

Re: Can I move the Bioware folder from C:Documents to my D Drive?

★ Guide

I had to install the game to find the configuration files for ME1 but it seams like it's just like in Dragon Age. Since my previous answer was marked as a success I'll presume that BioWare uses this as their only configuration file. Anyhow, on to the steps you have to take:

  1. Find the ME1 installation folder (where the game is installed, not your saves).
  2. Make a backup of the file (set a nice new file ending that you'll remember what it is, .bak for example)  <path_to_mass_effect_1>/data/masseffectconfig.xml (it might only look like it's named masseffectconfig depending on your operative system setting)
  3. Open the file <path_to_mass_effect_1>/data/masseffectconfig.xml with the text editor of your choice
  4. Change the following line:
    <string name="USERDATA_DIR">${CSIDL_PERSONAL}\BioWare\Mass Effect</string>
    to:
    <string name="USERDATA_DIR">A:\Documents\BioWare\Mass Effect</string>
    presuming that's the folder where you want your saves to be located.
  5. Move all your ME1 saves from your document folder to the new location.
  6. Start the game and you'll hopefully be able to enjoy the new save location.

Just give me a shout if it doesn't work and I'll look into if I can find some more configurations when I get the time.

Message 4 of 17 (13,348 Views)

Re: Can I move the Bioware folder from C:Documents to my D Drive?

★★★★★ Newbie

I try that's solutions but, it can't, i try open the dao after edit DAOriginsConfig.xml, and my savesdata not loaded, like a new installation the DAO, please tell me what to do, sorry my english so bad!

Message 5 of 17 (12,917 Views)
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Re: Can I move the Bioware folder from C:Documents to my D Drive?

★★★★★ Newbie

whether its DAOriginsLauncher.xml also edited?

Message 6 of 17 (12,914 Views)
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Re: Can I move the Bioware folder from C:Documents to my D Drive?

★ Guide

What did you replace the 

<string name="USERDATA_DIR">${CSIDL_PERSONAL}\BioWare\Dragon Age</string>

with?

Message 7 of 17 (12,894 Views)

Re: Can I move the Bioware folder from C:Documents to my D Drive?

★★★★★ Newbie
Spoiler
<string name="USERDATA_DIR">D:\Saves\BioWare\Dragon Age</string>

like that right? and I've changed all such clue

Message 8 of 17 (12,818 Views)
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Re: Can I move the Bioware folder from C:Documents to my D Drive?

Hero

I personally just moved the entire Documents folder to my hard drive. I did the same with Downloads, Music, etc. because they really don't need to be on an SSD.

http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/how-move-windows-7-personal-folders-my-documents-another-dri...



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Message 9 of 17 (12,793 Views)
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Re: Can I move the Bioware folder from C:Documents to my D Drive?

★ Guide

I can't find anything else in the config file that specifies the location to your document folder so if it doesn't work with changing the string in the xml-file and having it pointing to "D:\Saves\BioWare\Dragon Age" when:

  1. There actually exists such a folder (consider that the computer is dumb, it must be exactly as it is written with no random spaces after and/or wrong large characters).
  2. The "D:\Saves\BioWare\Dragon Age" folder actually has the same structure as the original "My Documents\BioWare\Dragon Age" folder (for example contains the folders "Characters" and "AddIns".
  3. The modified xml-file is located in the original path and has the name DAOriginsConfig.xml (note that the .xml is the file extension and should not normally be shown in windows file browser).

If those are correct (to the character) and it doesn't work for you, I'm afraid I can't come up with anything else in that config file. Of course, there might be something else that I've missed in another config file which I haven't looked at. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to look for it at the moment. However, the answer that Fred gave above works just as fine since it's changing the systems personal directory (CSIDL_PERSONAL and CSIDL_MYDOCUMENTS) which the original xml-file is using. However, that will also change the pointers for every other well written program (that is, hopefully, the majority that uses those system references).

 

Message 10 of 17 (12,783 Views)
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