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Windows What is GMS2 doing to my hard drive?

M

maartenvt

Guest
1613516596187.png

Uhmm what is happening here? Until very recently I swear I only ahd a C, D and E hard drive. Now I suddenly have L-Z... If I look in hard drives L-Z they all contain game maker related files:
1613516684645.png
Is this a known issue and / or dangerous to my pc?
 
D

Deleted member 13992

Guest
One problem at a time. Use something like Space Sniffer to see what is taking up space and where. It's not recommended to let your drive's free space get that low with modern OSes.

What is Recovery image and HP_TOOLS?

I don't understand the extra drives either. They can be removed/changed under Disk Management (just search in the windows bar) but I would try and free up space and understand what's going on with E and D before doing anything with drive letters. They contain GMS files yes, but they also seem to have a windows folder, so doing anything is risky.
Free up space on your main C first I think.
 
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kburkhart84

Firehammer Games
D: and E: are going to be partitions made by the OS/Vendor, typically recovery type stuff, for if a factory reset is needed. Those aren't always hidden.

The rest...I know GM does make virtual drives for something to do with the compilation process. I don't think I've seen it get this extensive though. Do they go away with a reboot?
 
D

Deleted member 13992

Guest
D: and E: are going to be partitions made by the OS/Vendor, typically recovery type stuff, for if a factory reset is needed. Those aren't always hidden.
Guess I learned something today, didn't know that was a thing. I haven't owned a pre-made PC in two decades.
 

kupo15

Member
I saw this for me too last week, but only a couple drives popped up and then after I restarted (I think?) they were somehow gone. Though at that time I was adding another SSD to my machine and had to format it. Something else popped up before I was able to do it but not sure what. So perhaps its not a GM thing but I can't tell you, sorry :/
 

kburkhart84

Firehammer Games
Guess I learned something today, didn't know that was a thing. I haven't owned a pre-made PC in two decades.
Yup, that explains why you haven't seen this.

I saw this for me too last week, but only a couple drives popped up and then after I restarted (I think?) they were somehow gone. Though at that time I was adding another SSD to my machine and had to format it. Something else popped up before I was able to do it but not sure what. So perhaps its not a GM thing but I can't tell you, sorry :/
Quoting the manual page on the compiling settings
Use Subst for drive paths: When this is checked, GameMaker Studio 2 will create - and remove again when no longer required - virtual drives to use as a substitution for full file paths. These virtual drives bypass any potential issue with file paths being too long for the OS (particularly when compiling for Android or using extensions) and it is recommended to have this enabled. However, if you are having issues with GameMaker Studio 2 creating virtual drives like this, you can disable the option. By default, this is enabled.
If I remember right, it was a thing they added to overcome long filenames. It can be disabled, though it is enabled on my machine currently. I don't know details of when/how it is actually used, but I DO know I've seen it discussed here in the forums before.
 

Evanski

Raccoon Lord
Forum Staff
Moderator
GMS makes virtual simulated drives to compile and run your gms game, It would seem the ones from last run didnt get cleared,
a computer restart should fix this

I would also recommend clearing some space on the C drive as having little diskspace will cause more errors that are worse then virtual drives not being removed
 

TsukaYuriko

☄️
Forum Staff
Moderator
These are essentially shortcuts to various locations on your storage drive for the purpose of keeping the file paths short. This avoids problems with file path character limits during compilation. There are supposed to be only three of them, though.
 

kupo15

Member
Yup, that explains why you haven't seen this.



Quoting the manual page on the compiling settings


If I remember right, it was a thing they added to overcome long filenames. It can be disabled, though it is enabled on my machine currently. I don't know details of when/how it is actually used, but I DO know I've seen it discussed here in the forums before.
These are essentially shortcuts to various locations on your storage drive for the purpose of keeping the file paths short. This avoids problems with file path character limits during compilation. There are supposed to be only three of them, though.

Good to know, that has to be it. Thanks! And yes, I only had 3 drives so that lines up
 
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