[Capt_Thunder]

I have a old 120GB Hard drive I bought in the late 90s. Still works today. That and my white keyboard are the only things I never had to upgrade. However  It is now quite full. And the fact I have a dual boot is not helping. I have the dual boot so there is an OS only for games, and one  for work for safety reasons. I recently bought a 160Gb from a friend who upgraded to SATA. Now I have all this free HD space, and I can be more relaxed. But I have a question.
Freespace installs in C:\Games\FreeSpace2. Then one has to install a patch; the launcher; the Mediavps. And then the Mods. I do not think it is wise to change the default install location as the launcher expects this.
But since the user points the launcher to the Mods. Then the Mods can be on a separate location, even one a separate Hard drive. Has anyone tried this and how has this worked?

[Solatar]

FS2 doesn't have to be installed in C:\Games\Freespace 2 (My port-centric copy is in D:\Games\Descent Freespace) as long as it's all in the same directory.  You can install it to D:\Porn Folder\Super Porn Folder\Never Going to Find My Games Here\Freespace Rocks if you want, just make sure that you configure the launcher to look for your installation.  I bet you can copy the entire folder right over to the new hardrive (that's how I do "fresh fs2 installs", I just have an unmodded, unSCPed version I can copy).

I run a similar setup to yours; I have a single HD partitioned into two OS partitions (Windows 7 and Ubuntu) with a third for all my data, and I have ALL the data/.exes/launcher on the data partition.

As far as I know (and somebody more knowledgeable feel free to correct me) you can't install mods to a separate directory; they must be in the same directory as Freespace 2 is installed in.  I've never actually tried to point it to a MOD in a different folder though, have you tried? The worst that can happen is that it won't start/load the mod. 

[General Battuta]

FS2 doesn't have to be installed in C:\Games\Freespace 2 (My port-centric copy is in D:\Games\Descent Freespace) as long as it's all in the same directory.  You can install it to D:\Porn Folder\Super Porn Folder\Never Going to Find My Games Here\Freespace Rocks if you want, just make sure that you configure the launcher to look for your installation.  I bet you can copy the entire folder right over to the new hardrive (that's how I do "fresh fs2 installs", I just have an unmodded, unSCPed version I can copy).

I run a similar setup to yours; I have a single HD partitioned into two OS partitions (Windows 7 and Ubuntu) with a third for all my data, and I have ALL the data/.exes/launcher on the data partition.

As far as I know (and somebody more knowledgeable feel free to correct me) you can't install mods to a separate directory; they must be in the same directory as Freespace 2 is installed in.  I've never actually tried to point it to a MOD in a different folder though, have you tried? The worst that can happen is that it won't start/load the mod. 

While this is superficially correct, please never install FreeSpace 2 to a long-winded directory, like D:\Porn Folder\Super Porn Folder\Never Going to Find My Games Here\GRRM Porn\FreeSpace Rocks, as it will hit the string length limit and cause the game to crash.

Always install to something like C:\Games\FreeSpace2 or D:\Games\FreeSpace 2.

[niffiwan]

I know that FSO on Linux (and probably OSX as well) supports having mods folders in different places (like either the main freespace2 directory, or ~/.fs2_open, and possibly a 3rd place) but I don't know about Windows (sorry).

[Mongoose]

While this is superficially correct, please never install FreeSpace 2 to a long-winded directory, like D:\Porn Folder\Super Porn Folder\Never Going to Find My Games Here\GRRM Porn\FreeSpace Rocks, as it will hit the string length limit and cause the game to crash.

Always install to something like C:\Games\FreeSpace2 or D:\Games\FreeSpace 2.

Is that string length issue something that could feasibly be addressed at some point, or would it involve delving into the very heart of Codethulhu (may his brackets ever be closed)?

[Fury]

I know that FSO on Linux (and probably OSX as well) supports having mods folders in different places (like either the main freespace2 directory, or ~/.fs2_open, and possibly a 3rd place) but I don't know about Windows (sorry).

If you have Windows Vista or newer, you can use mklink command to create either symbolic links or junction points. Practically they're pretty much identical in how they function to the end-user. However, in some rare cases junction points have proved to work more reliably with some software.

Windows XP does not have built-in command to create junction points and XP does not support symbolic links. There is however a tool called Junction to create junction points.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx

So, what can I accomplish with mklink or Junction tool? For example, you have FS2 installed to C:\Games\FreeSpace2. You can install Blue Planet to D:\FS2mods\blueplanet, then create junction point (or symbolic link) to C:\Games\FreeSpace2\blueplanet and have it point to D:\FS2mods\blueplanet. Then as far as FS2 is concerned, the mod is installed in C:\Games\FreeSpace2\blueplanet.

Windows Vista, 7 and 8 use junction points to provide backwards compatibility for applications that were designed for XP or 2000.

Mklink is very useful especially to SSD owners who can move their applications and games to and from SSD without having to reinstall them.

[Phantom Hoover]

Is that string length issue something that could feasibly be addressed at some point, or would it involve delving into the very heart of Codethulhu (may his brackets ever be closed)?

It came up on IRC a couple of weeks ago, and when Axem had a look at it he found that there's a PATH_LENGTH or somesuch constant defined to be 127; but it's never used, and the pathname limit given by experiment isn't 127. I think he gave up after that.

[Mongoose]

So Codethulhu then.  Figures.

[karajorma]

It's 176 or 192 IIRC. I vaguely remember seeing it recently.

If I see it again I'll jot it down.