When you say "game files", do you mean save files, or do you mean application files, i.e. you would choose the flash drive as the location where the game was installed? If it's the former, then yes that would work fine as long as the game allows you to specify the flash drive as the source for its game data. If it doesn't allow that, then you'd have to copy those files from the flash drive to whatever folder the game uses for its data, but you could of course keep backup copies of those files on a flash drive. I do that all the time in order to preserve save data and such even when I don't have the game installed so that I can resume my game later.
If on the other hand you're asking about installing the game itself onto a flash drive, then based on the way you worded the question about reusing files, it sounds like you're planning to uninstall the game without the flash drive being connected so that the files are still there? If so, that very likely won't work. Most uninstallers will fail if they can't find the files they're supposed to be uninstalling, but even if your uninstallation succeeded, you'd need the flash drive connected whenever you performed the reinstallation, at which point the reinstall would overwrite all existing files anyway, even if everything was already there. And if you instead reinstalled the game to some other location, then the game wouldn't use the files you still had on the flash drive anymore because the new installation would point to the location you installed to. And on top of everything else, a game installed onto a flash drive, even a fast one, would likely perform pretty badly.
jphughan
11 Legend
•
13985 Posts
•
79931 Points
996
0
Posted July 14th, 2019 21:00
When you say "game files", do you mean save files, or do you mean application files, i.e. you would choose the flash drive as the location where the game was installed? If it's the former, then yes that would work fine as long as the game allows you to specify the flash drive as the source for its game data. If it doesn't allow that, then you'd have to copy those files from the flash drive to whatever folder the game uses for its data, but you could of course keep backup copies of those files on a flash drive. I do that all the time in order to preserve save data and such even when I don't have the game installed so that I can resume my game later.
If on the other hand you're asking about installing the game itself onto a flash drive, then based on the way you worded the question about reusing files, it sounds like you're planning to uninstall the game without the flash drive being connected so that the files are still there? If so, that very likely won't work. Most uninstallers will fail if they can't find the files they're supposed to be uninstalling, but even if your uninstallation succeeded, you'd need the flash drive connected whenever you performed the reinstallation, at which point the reinstall would overwrite all existing files anyway, even if everything was already there. And if you instead reinstalled the game to some other location, then the game wouldn't use the files you still had on the flash drive anymore because the new installation would point to the location you installed to. And on top of everything else, a game installed onto a flash drive, even a fast one, would likely perform pretty badly.