Computers, Tricks, Tips, or Hacks

Move that nasty EA Games folder out of Documents!

by Nick
Attention: This content is 16 years old. Please keep its age in mind while reading as its contents may now be outdated or inaccurate.

My girlfriend loves The Sims 2.  Unfortunately she has to play it on my main computer because it’s also a gaming rig so it handles The Sims 2 with ease, where as her computer would stroke out.

Because of this The Sims 2 is installed on my computer.

I have my system setup with multiple hard drives, but for the sake of this article, we’ll say I have my C: which is where Windows and all it’s crap is installed, and I have a D: where I install all my games and keep the [legal] images for them and stuff.

Well The Sims 2, thanks to EA’s shitty programming, when installed to another location besides the C:, like the D:, even though it installs to d:\program files\ea games\the sims 2 it still feels the dire need to install files on you C: in your Documents folder!  Even more so, if you have every expansion pack and add on like we do that EA Games folder on your C: can balloon up to over 5gb!!!  This is incredibly frustrating because this is the EXACT reason why I install games to the D: I want to keep ridiculous amount of files OFF my much smaller C:

As far as I know, I am the first person that has come up with a way to move this folder-of-shit off of your C: and to any other location you please.

Basically, you move the folder where ever you want it to go.  I moved it to D:\Program Files\EA Games Data

Once you move the folder you need to create something called a “symbolic link” from the old location to the new location.  These instructions are for Windows Vista only.  This can be done on XP with a program called “junction” but I’m not going to provide those instructions as XP is an 8 year old OS now and is a thing of the past.

Open up a command prompt and cd in to your Documents folder.  In there you will use the following command:

mklink /j “EA Games” “D:\Program Files\EA Games Data”

This command is making a link, junction (folder), from EA Games in your current directory to the new location of the directory.

You will see this output:

Junction created for EA Games <<===>> D:\Program Files\EA Games Data

Telling you the junction from EA Games in your Documents folder has been linked to your new folder location.  Now in your documents folder you will see the EA Games folder with a shortcut arrow on it.

You can navigate this folder and read/write files to it just as if the files were on your C:, but in reality the files live on your D:!

So now the 5gb bohemoth of a folder has been moved.  It’s really cool because even though you can navigate to C:\Users\Nick\Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Collections The OS is actually accessing the files in D:\Program Files\EA Games Data\The Sims2\Collections

Very very useful!

Enjoy reclaiming your space on your C: