Guide: Installation of Oculus Software to Non-System Drives

[cybereality]

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

[SOTBMP]

@maxx11111 - just delete links and copy back the folders.

[maxx11111]

this is what im trying   xcopy "D:\Oculus" C:\Program Files (x86)\Oculus\ /O /X /E /H /K
and getting invalid number of parameters

sorted was just being stupid

[TommyEn]

@maxx11111 If I were you I'd just unistall the software and install it fresh. Then symlink just the Software and Downloads folder.

[cybereality]

You need quotes around any paths with spaces in them. For example:

xcopy "D:\Oculus" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Oculus\" /O /X /E /H /K

[maxx11111]

thanks I've sorted it now 🙂

[betavr]

Unfortunately this doesn't work for me, after starting OculusClient.exe a window pops up for a moment, then it exits immediately.

Edit: after reading the instructions again, I see that the destination drive needs to be ntfs formatted, but mine is fat32. 

[cybereality]

Yeah, FAT32 won't work.

[Lurch666]

I would also like to know if I can use the files of my already installed elite dangerous instead of downloading it again-would take ages with my download speeds.

[Shannonb1]

Windows 10, NTFS, Not working for me. Tried a reboot, store flashes and then closes.

[wiser]

i have the same problem than betavr, but my disk is ntfs