transfer games between ssd's or deleeting windows and keeping games

[Dodobird]

Well this is a multitude of questions really,

But I am going to build a very expensive PC for doing amateur 3d modeling, animation and rendering in my spare time.

It happened to go just over my budget with the parts I wanted, so I was looking at ways to cut down the price.

I found that if I buy a lower storage ssd (m.2) and get an OEM version of windows, it will at least have me covered until I can afford a higher storage ssd (m.2) and a retail version of Windows 10 (pro)

I will also game and livestream games on it.

So my questions are:

Can I install the games outside of windows on the first small ssd I get and then transfer them to the other hard drive ,when I get it, without loosing all the progress in the games?

If I install a game outside if windows, does it work at all, not as good?

how do you wipe the first hard drive?

Or the best alternative would be to keep the games on the old hard drive but only delete Windows, is that possible? I have never deleted windows before so i don't know where to start and I am for some reason skeptic to the games on the first ssd being accessible from my newer Windows (on the other ssd) if I installed the games in the previous Windows (on the previous ssd) and then removed the previous Windows (from the previous ssd).

But is there a way to delete windows and have the games still playable from the newer windows?

[Origami Cactus]

What games? Steam, uplay and maybe origin support transfering the games to another drive.

[bleedblue]

1. Yes

 

2. Yes, will run the same.

 

3. Just format it.

[Dodobird]

7 minutes ago, Origami Cactus said:

What games? Steam, uplay and maybe origin support transfering the games to another drive.

Steam games

[Origami Cactus]

7 minutes ago, Dodobird said:

Steam games

Then just move the steam folder with all the games, and later relink them.

[WereCat]

Some games put saves into the MyDocument folder in Windows so you may want to backup it as well before tranfering the drive to avoid save game loss. 

[Dodobird]

7 minutes ago, Origami Cactus said:

Then just move the steam folder with all the games, and later relink them.

My head just goes black when you say relink, I'm sorry I'm pretty nooby but how would I go about relinking? 

[Origami Cactus]

Just now, Dodobird said:

My head just goes black when you say relink, I'm sorry I'm pretty nooby but how would I go about relinking? 

Basically if you have copied the games to a new library folder, and then when you redownload them, just choose the folder you copied the games into, then instead of downloading the games from the internet, steam will just check the files and then use them, saving you a bunch of time.

[Dodobird]

8 minutes ago, Origami Cactus said:

Basically if you have copied the games to a new library folder, and then when you redownload them, just choose the folder you copied the games into, then instead of downloading the games from the internet, steam will just check the files and then use them, saving you a bunch of time.

This took me really long to get but I get it now, however when you say "choose the folder", from where do I choose the folder? From the game? From steam? Or from some other thing?

[Dodobird]

2 hours ago, WereCat said:

Some games put saves into the MyDocument folder in Windows so you may want to backup it as well before tranfering the drive to avoid save game loss. 

How would I make the games point back to that copied "my documents" folder then?

[WereCat]

1 minute ago, Dodobird said:

How would I make the games point back to that copied "my documents" folder then?

you just copy the files to the MyDocument on the other PC

[Dodobird]

3 minutes ago, WereCat said:

you just copy the files to the MyDocument on the other PC

That's too easy for beeing a solution to my problems ? Give me something that is harder to do, nah I'm just kidding?

[WereCat]

1 minute ago, Dodobird said:

That's too easy for beeing a solution to my problems ? Give me something that is harder to do, nah I'm just kidding?

BUT WAIT!

Once you finish playing on the other PC and you want the saves to work on your first PC then you have to backup again and repeat!

 

(so much more difficult)