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Guide: Installation of Oculus Software to Non-System Drives

cybereality
Grand Champion

NOTE: This guide is NOT NEEDED anymore as the setup installer supports multiple drives natively.


WARNING: Some users are experiencing issues with the steps below. You may wish to hold off performing these steps for the time being while we investigate. Thanks.

The team's releasing an update that enables installation of Oculus software and apps to drives other than your system drive (typically, C:\Program Files (x86)\Oculus) in one of the first Rift updates (likely the next 2-3 weeks). In the meantime, there is an unofficial workaround you can use to move your existing Oculus software and all installed games to a different drive.

Note that this is unsupported (!) and doesn't have a migration path back to a good state once we release the update in the next few weeks. Also, note that the full OculusSetup.exe functionality (uninstall, repair) won't work if you're using this workaround.

Your destination drive will need the following to be true:

  • NTFS file system
  • Not a network drive
  • Not a removable drive (like a portable external HD)
  • Its drive letter (such as E:\) won't change for any other reason
  • 1.2GB free space (in addition to the size of your installed games)


Process:

  1. Install Oculus using OculusSetup.exe ( www.oculus.com/setup - available Monday morning PST)
  2. Launch a command prompt with admin privileges:
    1. Win 7: Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> right-click Command Prompt, choose Run as administrator
    2. Win 8 or Win 10: Right-click Start or hit Win+X, choose Command Prompt (Admin)
  3. Shutdown the Oculus VR Runtime Service:
    1. Run in the command prompt: net stop OVRService
  4. Move your Oculus folder to another drive while maintaining permissions (as an example, E:\Oculus). You must move the folder using xcopy, or you will break Oculus and risk opening security holes in your system.
    1. Run in the command prompt: xcopy “C:\Program Files (x86)\Oculus” E:\Oculus\ /O /X /E /H /K
  5. Delete the “C:\Program Files (x86)\Oculus” directory
  6. Symlink your new directory with the old directory location:
    1. Run in the command prompt: mklink /d "C:\Program Files (x86)\Oculus" E:\Oculus
  7. Restart the Oculus VR Runtime Service:
    1. Run in the command prompt: net start OVRService
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X | MSI X370 Titanium | G.Skill 16GB DDR4 3200 | EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 | Corsair Hydro H110i Gigabyte RX Vega 64 x2 | Samsung 960 Evo M.2 500GB | Seagate FireCuda SSHD 2TB | Phanteks ENTHOO EVOLV
113 REPLIES 113

Heff
Explorer
Thanks for this, worked wonders on an older test/dev station that had only a few GBs to spare on the OS ssd.

winterfox05
Honored Guest
I followed the simlink instructions but cannot start Oculus Home (the window borders flicker for a brief moment and then disappear immediately, surely a crash of sorts). Where do I find the logs that are written upon launching Oculus Home?

tigerdevil
Honored Guest
Attempted do above procedure and got the same flashing window syndrome. Moved the files back for now. Official fix can't come soon enough.

SmartCarrion
Honored Guest
I'm hitting the same problem - Oculus desktop flashes on then immediately off.  Please help us!  I can send more logs if you need them
My first VR Game is in public beta!! Lair Life

Ozmodian
Honored Guest
Thanks for this.  It was very helpful!

Peejle
Explorer
Why isn't this a sticky or 'Announcement'?

Peejle

cybereality
Grand Champion

Peejle said:

Why isn't this a sticky or 'Announcement'?


It was originally an announcement but too many people were having failure with the steps I decided to not have it so prominent. 
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X | MSI X370 Titanium | G.Skill 16GB DDR4 3200 | EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 | Corsair Hydro H110i Gigabyte RX Vega 64 x2 | Samsung 960 Evo M.2 500GB | Seagate FireCuda SSHD 2TB | Phanteks ENTHOO EVOLV

rebelMonster
Honored Guest
thanks for the suggestion. It didn't work for me as describes either, but soflinking only the C:\Program Files (x86)\Oculus\Downloads and C:\Program Files (x86)\Oculus\Software works like a charm and all downloads and installs end up an my with drive with space

Vekaola
Explorer
I ended up linking the software folder only and it seems to work. However, I'm trying to install Project Cars which requires 43.84 GB of space and I don't have that much free on C:\ so it won't even try to start downloading and only pops up an error message saying I need to free up more space. Is there any way to bypass the disk space check or somehow fool the system into believing it has enough free space?

sayanbha
Explorer
Program opens and then closes immediately. Sigh Win 10