When installing a game, the installer usually suggests placing its files on disk C, in the folders Program files, Program files (x86), games or some other. The main disadvantage of this method is that in case of reinstalling the operating system, you need to reinstall all the games, which additionally takes time. This article will talk about which games and how you can move them to another disk.
As practice has shown, only the games “HP and the Deathly Hallows” require mandatory installation – otherwise they do not even start. The reason for this is a flaw, because of which these two games simply cannot restore their entries in the registry, which the same Order of the Phoenix and the Half-Blood Prince normally cope with.
But the rest of the games may well do without reinstalling, since they either do not bind to the Windows registry, or create the necessary entries there on their own at the first launch.
Next, we will assume that you have installed all the games about Harry’s world. If you don’t have any of the games, just skip to the next paragraph.
To begin with, let’s prepare a disk: there should be enough space on it to accommodate all the games.
Requirements for this disk:
- The disk should not contain operating system files (there should be no folders Windows, Program files, Program files (x86), Users, Program Data).
- To move all the games, at least 29 GB must be available (with the requirements of many modern games, this is not so much):
- Philosopher’s Stone: 500 MB
- Chamber of Secrets: 600 MB
- Prisoner of Azkaban: 900 MB
- Goblet of Fire: 2.2 GB
- Order of the Phoenix: 5.5 GB
- Half-Blood Prince: 5 GB
- Quidditch World Cup: 500 MB
- LEGO HP: 1-4 years: 6 GB
- LEGO HP: 5-7 years: 7.5 GB
- At least 20% of free space should remain on the disk.
- Since the files do not change during the game, they can be placed on a solid-state drive (usually known by the abbreviation SSD) – to speed up the download. Relevant for relatively expensive computer configurations. But this section, again, should not be a system one.
We begin to prepare the disk. Let’s assume that the disk D is suitable for you.
- We create a folder for games on it with a name consisting of English letters and without spaces. Let it be the name hpgames
- Go to this folder and create subfolders for games. It is also advisable to adhere to the rule “only English letters, without spaces”. But this is not necessary. If you don’t have enough experience, then do it strictly according to the instructions below.
Let’s create folders with the following names:
- hp1 – for the Philosopher’s Stone;
- hp2 – for the Chamber of Secrets;
- hp3 – for the Prisoner of Azkaban;
- hp4 – for the Goblet of Fire;
- hp5 – for the Order of the Phoenix;
- hp6 – for a half-blood Prince;
- qwc – for the Quidditch World Cup;
- l14 – for LEGO HP: 1-4 years;
- l57 – for LEGO HP: 5-7 years.
We get such paths:
- D:\hpgames\hp1 – for the Philosopher’s Stone;
- D:\hpgames\hp2 – for the Chamber of Secrets;
- D:\hpgames\hp3 – for the Prisoner of Azkaban;
- D:\hpgames\hp4 – for the Goblet of Fire;
- D:\hpgames\hp5 – for the Order of the Phoenix;
- D:\hpgames\hp6 – for the Half-blood Prince;
- D:\hpgames\qwc – for the Quidditch World Cup;
- D:\hpgames\l14 – for LEGO Harry Potter: 1-4 years;
- D:\hpgames\l57 – for LEGO Harry Potter: 5-7 years.
Now we proceed to the transfer.
The Philosopher’s Stone
1. Copy the files and folders of the game to the folder D:\hpgames\hp1. For this game, these are folders: help, maps, music, sounds, support, system, textures.
2. Create a new shortcut for the file D:\hpgames\hp1\system\hp.exe by dragging this file to the desktop with the RIGHT mouse button and selecting “Create Shortcut(s)” in the menu that appears.
The Chamber of Secrets
1. Copy the files and folders of the game to the folder D:\hpgames\hp2. For this game, these are folders: help, maps, music, sounds, support, system, textures.
2. Create a new shortcut for the file D:\hpgames\hp2\system\game.exe by dragging this file to the desktop with the RIGHT mouse button and selecting “Create Shortcut(s)” in the menu that appears.
Prisoner of Azkaban
1. Copy the files and folders of the game to the folder D:\hpgames\hp3. For this game, these are folders: animations, help, maps, movies, music, sounds, staticmeshes, support, system, textures.
2. Create a new shortcut for the file D:\hpgames\hp3\system\hppoa.exe by dragging this file to the desktop with the RIGHT mouse button and selecting “Create Shortcut(s)” in the menu that appears.
Goblet of Fire
1. Copy the game files to the folder D:\hpgames\hp4. For this game, these are the files: data.bin, gof_f.exe , gof_icon.ico, GofControls.exe , GofInput.dll , movies.big, msvcr71.dll , music.big, speech.big.
2. Create a new shortcut for the file D:\hpgames\hp4\gof_f.exe by dragging this file to the desktop with the RIGHT mouse button and selecting “Create Shortcut(s)” in the menu that appears, you can specify the icon file in the shortcut properties – gof_f.ico. Otherwise, the label will have a very inconspicuous appearance.
Order of the Phoenix
1. Copy the folders and files of the game to the folder D:\hpgames\hp5. For this game, these are the files: data.bin, data2.bin, data3.bin, data4.bin, hp.exe or hp_op.exe , hpexhdlr.dll , movies.big, music.big, ootp_icon.ico and the maps, support folders.
2. Create a new shortcut for the file D:\hpgames\hp5\hp.exe or D:\hpgames\hp5\hp_op.exe (depends on which file is available), in the properties of the shortcut, you can specify the icon file – ootp_icon.ico. Otherwise, the label will have a very inconspicuous appearance.
The Half-blood Prince
1. Copy the folders and files of the game to the folder D:\hpgames\hp6. For this game, these are the files: data.bin, data2.bin, data3.bin, data4.bin, hp6.exe movies.big, music.big and the maps folder. Often these files are in the “pc” folder. Files GDFBinary.dll , hbp_icon.ico does not have to be copied.
2. Create a new shortcut for the file D:\hpgames\hp6\pc\hp6.exe by dragging this file to the desktop with the RIGHT mouse button and selecting “Create Shortcut(s)” in the menu that appears.
Quidditch World Cup
1. Copy the folders and files of the game to the folder D:\hpgames\qwc. For this game, these are folders: audio, frontend, language, locale, match, movie’s, root, stadium, support, teams and files: 00000000.016, 00000000.256, datastr.ccd, language.ccd, qwc.exe , qwc.ico.
2. Create a new shortcut for the file D:\hpgames\qwc\wc.exe by dragging this file to the desktop with the RIGHT mouse button and selecting “Create Shortcut(s)” in the menu that appears.
LEGO HP: 1-4 years
1. Copy the folders and files of the game to the folder D:\hpgames\l14.
2. Create a new shortcut for the file D:\hpgames\l14\legoharrypotter.exe by dragging this file to the desktop with the RIGHT mouse button and selecting “Create Shortcut(s)” in the menu that appears.
LEGO HP: 5-7 years
1. Copy the folders and files of the game to the folder D:\hpgames\l57.
2. Create a new shortcut for the file D:\hpgames\l57\legoharrypotter2.exe by dragging this file to the desktop with the RIGHT mouse button and selecting “Create Shortcut(s)” in the menu that appears. The name of this file may be different.
After transferring the files, you can delete the games we transferred from the system using the program removal wizard: “Control Panel – Programs and Components” (if you still have Windows XP, then this is for you: “Control Panel – Add and Remove programs”). Although this is optional. At the same time, it is advisable to make backup copies of the saves, since some installers, when deleting the game, also overwrite the save files. This program can find and reserve saves: “HP and your computer”
Steam games
You can also transfer games purchased on Steam to another disk. As a result, we get a huge saving of time and Internet traffic in case of reinstalling the system.
The point is to transfer the client itself with the game library to another disk. If you have several folders with games, then this method may not be suitable.
Transferring the Steam client and installed games
Let’s consider the option when all the games are installed in the folder C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps
The Steam client itself is installed in the default folder:
C:\Program Files\Steam
The files of the installed games, as mentioned above, are located in the folder:
C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\
We will transfer it to disk D.
We begin the transfer process.
- Be sure to make sure that you have not lost your login and password to log in to Steam: after the transfer, you will need them.
- There should be enough space on disk D to transfer all the games.
- Disabling the Steam client (menu Steam -> Exit).
- Creating the Steam folder on the D disk.
- Copy from the folder C:\Program Files\Steam to the folder D:\Steam:
- the folder SteamApps;
- the file Steam.exe
- To increase reliability, for now just rename the folder C:\Program Files\Steam in C:\Program Files\Steam123 (requires computer administrator rights). If something doesn’t work out, then a backup copy will be very useful.
- Run in the folder D:\Steam file just copied there Steam.exe and enter the username/password.
- The Steam client will perform a self-update and login should occur.
After that, all new games will be installed in the folder D:\Steam\SteamApps - Run all the transferred games from the Steam library one by one: they should work as before, all with the same saves. It won’t hurt to check the installation cache of games (available in the properties window of each game in the Steam client).
- If the transfer was successful, then you can either delete the folder C:\Program Files\Steam123 immediately or after a while.
If the Steam client gives a lot of errors, then you need to do the following:
- Shut down the Steam client
- Go to the folder D:\Steam
- Move the SteamApps folder to another location (for example, to the root folder of disk D)
- Delete the Steam client via the Windows Control Panel snap-in “Programs and components” in modern systems or “Installing and removing programs” in Windows XP. The removal mode is “Automatic” (if the installer asks about it).
- Install the Steam client by changing the installation path from C:\Program Files\Steam on D:\Steam .
- Specify the path to the Steam library: D:\Steam\SteamApps
- Return the SteamApps folder to D:\Steam
- Launch the Steam client and log in.
- Check the file cache for games.
Note: if you transfer games to another computer (for example, you bought a new computer and transfer games to its hard drive), then do not forget to copy the save files as well. Information about where to find the save files can be found on the game pages of our website. Our program can also find the save folders: HP and your computer.
What do we have in the end? After reinstalling the system, it will be enough to put the shortcuts of the games on the Desktop and update once:
- DirectX;
- VC++ Runtime 2005-2008-2010
We provide links to these components on the page “Files“
This completes the installation. It does not hurt to put the save files in their places – so that you can continue playing the games.
In the case of the Steam client, after reinstalling the system, it will be enough to run its executable file (steam.exe) and perform the recovery procedure – after that, nothing from the game library has to be reinstalled.
Note: the actions described in the article are associated with some risk to the operability of the computer’s operating system, so if you are not sure that you can, if necessary, fix everything, then it is better to seek help from more experienced wizards so that they do everything correctly without breaking anything. The site employees are not responsible for what you do with your computer – you make any changes at your own risk. We’re just sharing information about how it works, if done right.
Sources of information:
Shared his and other people’s experience: AlexeyMS