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General discussionCan I change the path of a zipped game?(17 posts)(17 posts)
(17 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted March 25, 2025
I wanted to install a game from my GOG saved in a zip with all its files instead of using GOG Galaxy, but whenever I install it from the executable in the zip it always downloads the game in the C directory instead of another, I wanted to be able to have the option of changing to D or another directory if possible.
Posted March 25, 2025
Your question is worded a little confusingly, but can't you just extract the contents of your zip file by using the zip tool's file chooser dialog to point to the D: drive?
Posted March 25, 2025
Well......cyou could use...dare I say ...the offline installers.
Post edited March 25, 2025 by RizzoCuoco
Posted March 25, 2025
The offline installers insist on unpacking into %systemroot%/tmp, so if the C: drive lacks space, this won't work either.
Posted March 25, 2025
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Dawnsinger: The offline installers insist on unpacking into %systemroot%/tmp, so if the C: drive lacks space, this won't work either.
Oh...I understand what you are saying. I did not realize that was how the Inno Setup installers worked. I thought the temp files would go on whichever drive you chose to do the install. I can tell you ran into this problem. Hmmm....GoG does need to address that.
Post edited March 25, 2025 by RizzoCuoco
Posted March 25, 2025
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Dawnsinger: The offline installers insist on unpacking into %systemroot%/tmp, so if the C: drive lacks space, this won't work either.
Do inno setup respect system enviroment variables setup by the user?
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RizzoCuoco: Well......cyou could use...dare I say ...the offline installers.
I noticed you recent post but would like to add that infortunately, downloading the installers is not always possible, say, because a slow, inexistent or metered internet connection.
Post edited March 25, 2025 by Dark_art_
Posted March 25, 2025
Yes, I did. :)
I believe it should work without any temp files at all. The installer obviously knows where each file is supposed to go, so it knows the cumulative size per destination folder and therefore can check for sufficient space beforehand (if it bothers at all), and unpack the files one by one directly to the target location. Only things that aren't part of the finished install should go to tzhe tmp folder, like maybe a script to register files or generate an install log, if these can't be part of the running installer "for reasons".

But possibly I expect too much of these things, just like I expect that key rebinds and framerate limiters and resolution settings are standard and "just work" because they're so elementary and have been around for so long. Obviously, I keep gettig unpleasantly surprised. :)

Edit: Dark_art_
According to this thread:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2002247/can-one-use-environment-variables-in-inno-setup-scripts
the .iss scripts could, but I don't know if they actually do, and if so, if they do it correctly (if they use the compile-time version, it'll obviously break, anyway).
Post edited March 25, 2025 by Dawnsinger
Posted March 25, 2025
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Dawnsinger: I believe it should work without any temp files at all. The installer obviously knows where each file is supposed to go, so it knows the cumulative size per destination folder and therefore can check for sufficient space beforehand (if it bothers at all), and unpack the files one by one directly to the target location. Only things that aren't part of the finished install should go to tzhe tmp folder, like maybe a script to register files or generate an install log, if these can't be part of the running installer "for reasons".
That'd be nice, but the problem is that once GOG "Galaxified" the installers, so they're made up of file chunks that are first unpacked and then assembled into proper files (there have been plenty of discussions about it, I'm sure AB2012, among others, could get into it at length), you end up with this behavior, installation requiring twice the space the installed game would, with the first half being in the Temp folder, so if there's not enough space there, it won't work. Can move the temp folder, or try symlinks, but it can be a fair amount of trouble. Alternately, if this system remains required, the installers could have a setting to let the user tell them where to put the temp files, especially if too little space is found on the drive where the temp folder is. But they don't seem willing to do that.
Posted March 25, 2025
Why not change the %systemroot% folder ? If there is not enough space on the drive, it will likely cause lots of issues.
Posted March 26, 2025
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RizzoCuoco: Well......cyou could use...dare I say ...the offline installers.
Yes, it was an offline installer that I said, what I want is to be able to change the installation location of the offline .exe which is Disk C to D.
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kenrap: Your question is worded a little confusingly, but can't you just extract the contents of your zip file by using the zip tool's file chooser dialog to point to the D: drive?
Normally gog's offline installers do not allow the user to change the directory, as the game installs directly, I wish we could at least use REGedit to change this.
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Dawnsinger: Yes, I did. :)
I believe it should work without any temp files at all. The installer obviously knows where each file is supposed to go, so it knows the cumulative size per destination folder and therefore can check for sufficient space beforehand (if it bothers at all), and unpack the files one by one directly to the target location. Only things that aren't part of the finished install should go to tzhe tmp folder, like maybe a script to register files or generate an install log, if these can't be part of the running installer "for reasons".

But possibly I expect too much of these things, just like I expect that key rebinds and framerate limiters and resolution settings are standard and "just work" because they're so elementary and have been around for so long. Obviously, I keep gettig unpleasantly surprised. :)

Edit: Dark_art_
According to this thread:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2002247/can-one-use-environment-variables-in-inno-setup-scripts
the .iss scripts could, but I don't know if they actually do, and if so, if they do it correctly (if they use the compile-time version, it'll obviously break, anyway).
So, could you change the location of the offline installer from Disk C where the system normally resides to D or one exclusively for games?
Post edited March 26, 2025 by Anomalocaris_Famag
Posted March 26, 2025
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Anomalocaris_Famag: So, could you change the location of the offline installer from Disk C where the system normally resides to D or one exclusively for games?
No, you can only change the location that Windows supplies to asking programs, and hope the offline installers will honour that. Microsoft says this is done like this:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/change-location-of-temp-files-folder-to-another/19f13330-dde1-404c-aa27-a76c0b450818

I renamed the old variables and created new ones with the old names and the new content, so I can easily change back anytime. It remains to be seen if this actually works.
Post edited March 26, 2025 by Dawnsinger
Posted March 26, 2025
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Anomalocaris_Famag: So, could you change the location of the offline installer from Disk C where the system normally resides to D or one exclusively for games?
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Dawnsinger: No, you can only change the location that Windows supplies to asking programs, and hope the offline installers will honour that. Microsoft says this is done like this:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/change-location-of-temp-files-folder-to-another/19f13330-dde1-404c-aa27-a76c0b450818

I renamed the old variables and created new ones with the old names and the new content, so I can easily change back anytime. It remains to be seen if this actually works.
ok, thank you
Posted March 26, 2025
https://constexpr.org/innoextract/
Here, rip the installers open, drop the files where ya please.
Posted March 28, 2025
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Dawnsinger: Edit: Dark_art_
According to this thread:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2002247/can-one-use-environment-variables-in-inno-setup-scripts
the .iss scripts could, but I don't know if they actually do, and if so, if they do it correctly (if they use the compile-time version, it'll obviously break, anyway).
Thanks.

Yeah, ideally they should not have a fixed temp directory baked in the installer but this is GOG after all :)

I got to try this and report, for science...
Posted March 28, 2025
Curiosity got the best of me and tried to change the temp location to a USB pen drive. Installed the game (Ghost of a Tale, ~2.5GB) and it used the pen drive just fine as a temp location.
It was slow, painfuly slow but it did respected the system wide enviroment setup.

As a side note, the installer used between 100MB and 600MB (very roughly) and all that was left after the finish was a couple of logs and open sans letter type.
At one point there was easily more than 50 folders created (probably 100+), with I assume a bunch of files inside. I didn't check how many files because the pen was being used and it was slow to respond.

Edit: of course, this was using the offline installer not Galaxy.
Post edited March 28, 2025 by Dark_art_
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General discussionCan I change the path of a zipped game?(17 posts)(17 posts)
(17 posts)