Reinstalling Games

[Hardass]

I redo my computers all the time, so every time I do them I have to reinstall my games. Sucks. Is there a way to install a game on a seperate hdd so that if I change my rig I do not have to reinstall? I have already set up a hdd just for games. But when I reformat my rig the games do not work because it can not find them. Hope this makes sense.

[Rider200]

Greetings,

When you say you have to reload your OS all the time is it because you are changing hardware or because you are like me and experimenting and blowing up the OS installation?

If you are blowing up the OS installation then you could use an imaging program such as ghost to make an image of the OS partition and when it blows up just put the image back on.

One thing about images, your backup is only as good as the last image. If you do a change and it works but don't back it up you will have to redo that change.

If you are doing hardware changes then the back up may not work, it may blue screen on you when you put it on, so in that case you need to do a backup image every hardware change.

Images will save you a lot of time. I just up graded my wifes computer from a P4 to a Core 2 dual that I had left over from my last project. I had to reinstall the OS, the P4 install did not like the Core 2 processor... Took me about five hours to complete and now the wireless is giving me problems.

HTH...

[jivetrky]

I have my games on a separate partition on the system harddrive. When you format, you loose any registry entries and etc that may have been put on in the install.

When I reformat (yes I do it fairly often, though not quite as much so now that I use Vista) I backup the saves (which most modern games seem to put in the My Documents folder) and then format. Unfortunately, the games DO, in most cases, have to be reinstalled for them to work properly again.

I really don't think there is a way to get around having to reinstall them as I said, they often add registry entries for the registration codes and other settings.

[Hardass]

Greetings,

When you say you have to reload your OS all the time is it because you are changing hardware or because you are like me and experimenting and blowing up the OS installation

HTH...

I change hardware alot.

[jivetrky]

Greetings,

When you say you have to reload your OS all the time is it because you are changing hardware or because you are like me and experimenting and blowing up the OS installation?

If you are blowing up the OS installation then you could use an imaging program such as ghost to make an image of the OS partition and when it blows up just put the image back on.

One thing about images, your backup is only as good as the last image. If you do a change and it works but don't back it up you will have to redo that change.

If you are doing hardware changes then the back up may not work, it may blue screen on you when you put it on, so in that case you need to do a backup image every hardware change.

Images will save you a lot of time. I just up graded my wifes computer from a P4 to a Core 2 dual that I had left over from my last project. I had to reinstall the OS, the P4 install did not like the Core 2 processor... Took me about five hours to complete and now the wireless is giving me problems.

HTH...

I have a feeling he reformats just because his windows install degrades and it gets noticeably slower than when everything was first installed. This is why *I* do it, I assume this is also why Hardass is doing it.


And an image might not be too bad of an idea. Just get your OS, drivers, apps, and games installed and setup just how you like them. Then do an image backup. Then you can just restore from that image when you feel the need to reformat. The only trouble is that you will still have to backup your game saves and stuff....otherwise you would loose any progress when you restore from the ghost image.

[Hardass]

Greetings,

When you say you have to reload your OS all the time is it because you are changing hardware or because you are like me and experimenting and blowing up the OS installation?

If you are blowing up the OS installation then you could use an imaging program such as ghost to make an image of the OS partition and when it blows up just put the image back on.

One thing about images, your backup is only as good as the last image. If you do a change and it works but don't back it up you will have to redo that change.

If you are doing hardware changes then the back up may not work, it may blue screen on you when you put it on, so in that case you need to do a backup image every hardware change.

Images will save you a lot of time. I just up graded my wifes computer from a P4 to a Core 2 dual that I had left over from my last project. I had to reinstall the OS, the P4 install did not like the Core 2 processor... Took me about five hours to complete and now the wireless is giving me problems.

HTH...

I change hardware alot.

I have my games on a separate partition on the system harddrive. When you format, you loose any registry entries and etc that may have been put on in the install.

When I reformat (yes I do it fairly often, though not quite as much so now that I use Vista) I backup the saves (which most modern games seem to put in the My Documents folder) and then format. Unfortunately, the games DO, in most cases, have to be reinstalled for them to work properly again.

I really don't think there is a way to get around having to reinstall them as I said, they often add registry entries for the registration codes and other settings.

So you backup the saved game levels and then do what?

[jivetrky]

I have a feeling he reformats just because his windows install degrades and it gets noticeably slower than when everything was first installed. This is why *I* do it, I assume this is also why Hardass is doing it.
I change hardware alot.

Or maybe I'm wrong :)

[Hardass]

Or maybe I'm wrong :)

I get bored.:D

[Rider200]

Some games like the Command and Conquer save the games in your profile, those will be backed up to the image.

Here is another advantage to an image, it compresses all the files better than a defrag program.

If you want to make the image smaller then clean out the temp files and move the swap file over to another drive. I have 4 gig in my rig and the swap file is spread accross two other dirves.

The image is just under 4 gig, it would be larger if the swap file was on the OS partition.

Something else someone here did a review of the SSD, I find that once the OS is installed and imaged putting the image back on the SSD is a little bit faster than the mechanical drives...

HTH...

[Hardass]

Some games like the Command and Conquer save the games in your profile, those will be backed up to the image.

Here is another advantage to an image, it compresses all the files better than a defrag program.

If you want to make the image smaller then clean out the temp files and move the swap file over to another drive. I have 4 gig in my rig and the swap file is spread accross two other dirves.

The image is just under 4 gig, it would be larger if the swap file was on the OS partition.

Something else someone here did a review of the SSD, I find that once the OS is installed and imaged putting the image back on the SSD is a little bit faster than the mechanical drives...

HTH...

I have created a Image with Acronis it worked perfect as long as it was going on same hardware. This will not work correctly if I change out a cpu or mobo.

[Rider200]

CPU change the image will work if it is in the same family, P4 - P4, Core 2 duo to Core 2 Quad, no problem.

P4 to Core 2 dual, have to reload the OS.

And of course a motherboard change then you will have to reload the OS.

I have found that if you are going to change the video card, if you go to a standard vga resolution and uninstall the video card then make the image when you install the new video card it doesn't blow up, sometimes it doesn't work. The time saved is almost worth the effort if it does work...

:)

[jivetrky]

Perhaps one thing you could do is make an unattended install of your OS. That way you can put your key and anything else you want on the install disc and set it up to do it automatically. Just makes the install go a little more quickly as you can just pop in the disc, boot from it, and it'll do the rest up to the first boot to the desktop. You can also slipstream all the MS updates on to the install and shorten all of the time for updates as well. Just gets you closer to a finished, fresh install.
Of course you still have to install all your drivers, apps, and games again. You actally CAN have it install most drivers and apps in the unattended install. But if you are like me, I like to make sure I have the latest drivers and versions of apps when I do a fresh install. So that doesn't really work too well with a premade unattended install disk (unless you make a new one often, in which case you aren't really saving yourself much time)

[pejsaboy]

If you were to install all of your most used games/apps prior to creating the image, their registry entries would be included in the image. then you would be able to leave them installed on the secondary hdd and they should just work. However, since Hardass is swapping hardware often, this doesn't actually help him. Should work for those times you just want a fresh install though :)

[Hardass]

Guys do I need to install DirectX9 when I am installing the game? I am running latest drivers and a GTX 280.

[jivetrky]

Guys do I need to install DirectX9 when I am installing the game? I am running latest drivers and a GTX 280.

I've found that with some games you do need to install DX9

But if it was me....I would not install the one that came with the game but rather download the latest from MS directly.

[TheGreySpectre]

Depends on the game.

You can install your games to a 2nd hdd. Most of them will work just fine. THere are a few that don't work though. You should also move your saved games storage file to that hdd so you don't lose your saved games.

[Hardass]

Thanks for the replies.