Windows 10 to Prompt for Save Location During Large App Installs

It looks like Windows 10 is going to get even smarter when it comes to app installs: Large apps and games installed from the Store will soon prompt you to choose an install location.

That’s according to a user on Reddit, who has posted a shot of the interface.

“This is huge,” he says, perhaps unaware of the pun.

To be fair to Microsoft, it has improved the way Windows 10 handles app and game installs over time. The system still retains the Program Files/Program Files (x86) folder structures found in previous Windows versions, of course. But you can now choose a default location for Store-based app and game installs in Settings, System, Storage, allowing those with small system drives to choose a different disk.

But with the recent spate of humongous Universal Windows Platform (UWP) games—Rise of the Tomb Raider, Gears of War: Ultimate Edition, Quantum Break and so on—each of which weighs in at many 10s of gigabytes of disk space, Microsoft is making things better still. Now, when you install one of those humongous apps or games, the Store will actually prompt you for an install location.

Now, you don’t get to pick the exact location—meaning whatever folder location—but you can at least pick the drive. And that drive can of course be different from the system drive (C:) or the default location for app installs (as determined in Settings).

This capability appeared over the past few Windows 10 Insider builds, so it will be part of the Anniversary update. Which means, in turn, that most Windows 10 users will receive this functionality on or around July 29.

Nice.