Redirecting folders on WIndows 10 help?

[Wadzinsky]

I have 2 computers that are my Every-day-driver depending on which room I feel most comfortable in.  I am trying to find a way to share a common place for both computers to store my projects or saved games without having to copy them to the other computer each time, or without using the Steam cloud which is super slow when you have lots of saves to sync.

 

I only wanted to redirect a few folders.  Downloads was fine, that has no issues since there are no dependents, but My Documents has a lot of different dependents based on computer configuration and RDP settings and so forth. Both computers are relatively identical in setup with the only major difference being a GTX 1070 in one, and RTX 2070 in the other.

 

I was only able to move the entire My Documents folder as a whole to a NAS location, but not specific folders within.   Is there a way to redirect only certain folders within My Documents to the NAS location which would allow me to keep computer specific settings and files separate?

[GoodBytes]

I don't know what folders and type of data or how big the data is, but did you look into OneDrive?

You can have Documents folder fully backup/sync via OneDrive as well.

If you have Office 365 you have 1TB of space avail there.

[Wadzinsky]

Something like Onedrive would be perfect, but it's cloud based.  I'm trying to keep this local since my gigabit network is considerably faster than my 100mbit internet.

 

Thanks for the suggestion tho.

[homeap5]

Can't you just share folders and use them like local ones?

[Wadzinsky]

3 hours ago, homeap5 said:

Can't you just share folders and use them like local ones?

I've been doing that, but it still requires manual copying to get the files where I need them.  What I am trying to do is redirect certain folders to a common shared location between both computers without the need to copy them manually.  I can centrally locate the entire My Documents folder on the NAS, but not individual folders within.  It's all or nothing it seems..

 

Both computers aren't always on at the same time, so if I read what you are saying correctly, that wouldn't work in my situation.  My server is always on so it has to be the central hub between both computers.  

[homeap5]

I don't fully understand - if you share folder, you can work on files in that folder without copying them. And why do you want to share user default ones? Forget it, create some work directory (your own) and work with that on both computers without copying.

 

Or I understand sth wrong.

[Wadzinsky]

Certain programs (games especially) will only save to one specific location that can't be changed.  So, for example, I wanted to redirect the My Games folder to the NAS location.  Windows 10 won't allow me to do that, only the entire My Documents folder which contains My Games.  By redirecting that folder alone, to the NAS location would allow me to freely just switch between computers and continue where I left off without the need to wait for the cloud to sync, or without having to copy them manually.

 

 

[Wadzinsky]

7 minutes ago, homeap5 said:

And why do you want to share user default ones?

this is precisely what I am trying to avoid.  By being able to relocate certain sub-folders within, not the entire folder

[Joluch]

I believe it can be done through symbolic links (mklink), where you have a "My Games" Folder on your NAS and a link that point to it in place of "My Documents\My Games" on each computer.

I'm not too familiar with this, so I'm going to base it on @Mira Yurizaki's expertise from another post. Please refer to it for more detail, but basically.

1. Move your most up-to-date "My Games" folder to the target location on the NAS, the other "My Games" folder on your other computer we'll just delete it.
2. Open command prompt in Elevated Mode (Run as admin)
3. The command's syntax is: 
   mklink /d "source folder path" "target folder path"
   which would look something like:
   mklink /d "C:\Users\Username\Documents\My Games" "\\PathOfTheNAS\My Games"

Then you'd do the same on your other computer, except to delete the "My Games" directory instead of moving it over to the NAS.

• To remove a link, in command prompt (Run as admin), use
  rmdir "link directory path"
  so it would look like:
  rmdir "C:\Users\Username\Documents\My Games"

instead of deleting the shortcut directly, as doing so will delete the associated folder as well.

 

I've only used it once before. and that was really more for a proof of concept test. So... backup your folder before trying? 

[Mira Yurizaki]

On 8/25/2019 at 12:54 PM, Wadzinsky said:

Certain programs (games especially) will only save to one specific location that can't be changed.  So, for example, I wanted to redirect the My Games folder to the NAS location.  Windows 10 won't allow me to do that, only the entire My Documents folder which contains My Games.  By redirecting that folder alone, to the NAS location would allow me to freely just switch between computers and continue where I left off without the need to wait for the cloud to sync, or without having to copy them manually.

If you want to store stuff on a NAS and have programs access it like any other storage drive (since I think applications can get fussy if you use a network path), you can map the network path to a drive (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4026635/windows-map-a-network-drive)

[Wadzinsky]

On 8/27/2019 at 10:38 AM, Joluch said:

I believe it can be done through symbolic links (mklink), where you have a "My Games" Folder on your NAS and a link that point to it in place of "My Documents\My Games" on each computer.

I'm not too familiar with this, so I'm going to base it on @Mira Yurizaki's expertise from another post. Please refer to it for more detail, but basically.

Ohhh... So close.  Further scrolling down that thread shows it only works on Local drives...  

 

But thank you so much for the advice. 

 

[jagdtigger]

Resilio maybe? (formerly  known as btsync)

[Joluch]

23 hours ago, Wadzinsky said:

Ohhh... So close.  Further scrolling down that thread shows it only works on Local drives...  

 

But thank you so much for the advice. 

the /J argument used in the linked post would have created a "Junction" that only works for local drives . Partly why the post wasn't provided as a direct answer as is.

 

The /D argument mentioned specifically above creates directory "symbolic links" that will work for network locations, as per your needs , with a sample NAS path in the given example.