Use Saved Games shell folder instead of Documents/My Games for savegames

[Berbe]

I noticed saved games are stored in the My Games subdirectory of the Documents shell folder.

On Windows, there is a dedicated shell folder for savegames.

Handling shell folders can be done using the registry:
https://superuser.com/a/1132321

Trying to use the 'Shell Folders' keys instead of the 'User Shell Folders' show a warning key message telling to preferablly use the SHGetFolderPath (before Windows Vista, https://msdn.microsoft.com/fr-fr/librar ... s.85).aspx) or SHGetKnownFolderPath (starting with Windows Vista, https://msdn.microsoft.com/fr-fr/librar ... s.85).aspx) functions.

Using the registry, it seems there is no human-form key to query. Using a list of known folder GUIDs (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/librar ... s.85).aspx or https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet ... tom-places), I ended up being able to quickly query the path for the correct location of that folder:
reg query "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders" /v {4C5C32FF-BB9D-43b0-B5B4-2D72E54EAAA4}

It's probably better to use the Shell32.dll functions though, links to which are provided above.

[David]

What is the advantage of doing so? Besides Capitalism Lab, the majority of games on the market (including the popular Civilization series) also save to the \Documents\My Games folder.

[Berbe]

I would bet on developers ignorance as to why it is a common behavior, and even Microsoft-published games do not always follow best practices.
It's a little bit of a pain to get everything ending up in Documents...

I got some examples of games doing a proper job:

• Fable III
• Frontier Developments (Elite Dagerous, Planet Coaster)
• Startup Company
• OpenTTD

Shell folders can individually be relocated, that means having savegames stored on their specific, dedicated location.