Why can't I install cubase on my external drive?

Few days ago, I decided to recategorize my all system drives to make it mor clear and convinient.
So, right before the holiday, wiped up all my drives and started to install stuffs.

But Cubase and all these Assistant and things blocking me.
I’ve changed all those possible options I could including Advanced Storage Settings.

All of your installers never asks me where to be saved. And it don’t have any ways to move to other path. Why did you made it like this?
Target folder settings only targetting installer files to saved. but I WANT TO “INSTALL” IT ON MY EXTERNAL DRIVE.

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Cubase itself needs to be installed on the C drive. The content can be installed on another drive but download directly from the steinberg download page and install where you want it.

You can move it with the content manager to whatever drive you want. I agree the download assistant installers are terrible. I did a rebuild and didn’t use the download assistant. I did as I mentioned above

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I finally found DL page now. Thnx…
But, could you explain about this with a little more detail?
Why does Cubase needed to be installed on C drive?
I wanted to install all of my presets and programs on external storage to manage it easily(also like my documentation programs on other drive.)

Hi,

I don’t know why, but it is specified like this. If you manage to install it to other drive, you could come to a problem, if you try to update your Cubase later. This might not work.

Btw, lot’s of Windows applications require the installation to the system C drive.

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Aha. Thnx. Then I’ll install Cubase on C and Halion and other components on external. That’s fine right?

I would install all the executables on C: and the content on the external drive.

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Just use mklink function with powershell. All your files will be on external HDD but system will think it’s on C.

@hybb Be careful with symbolic links, if you don’t understand them. Not all software follows them. Backup programs which copy locked files for example.

I haven’t tried with Steinberg installers, but confusion for the installer might ensue when it’s looking for its uninstall temp file.

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I have my Cubase 11 Pro installed on drive D: and always had since version 8. Never had problems with upgrades, updates or fresh installs. Only recently when Stenberg decided to “upgrade” their Download Assistant, Cubase suddenly “needs” to be installed on drice C:, which is just wrong.

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Wrong programmatically or “morally”? It’s really the devs who set the specification, so if you use things in a special way, you can expect your workaround to break with an update – not just SB apps, but generally speaking.

Windows?

I’ve always had Cubase installers put it on the System drive and move it around as required using Windows NTFS filesystem junctions.

Examples (Replace E: with your target partition, and rolan with the name of your own user directory):

Open an administrative command prompt and copy large content folders to a different drive. In my case I simply used xcopy to preserve all the file permissions/stamps/etc and copy directories:
.
xcopy /E /I /H /K /X /B "%APPDATA%\Steinberg" "E:\Users\rolan\AppData\Roaming\Steinberg"
xcopy /E /I /H /K /X /B "%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Program Files\Steinberg" "E:\ProgramData\Steinberg"
xcopy /E /I /H /K /X /B "%SYSTEMDRIVE%\ProgramData\Steinberg" "E:\ProgramData\Steinberg"
`
(note, the /B flag will copy any links/junctions if they exist, rather than making a full copy of their targets.)

Next I renamed the original folder(s):
.
rename "%APPDATA%\Steinberg" "%APPDATA%\Steinberg.bak"
rename "%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Program Files\Steinberg" "%SYSTEMDRIVE%\ProgramData\Steinberg.bak"
rename "%SYSTEMDRIVE%\ProgramData\Steinberg" "%SYSTEMDRIVE%\ProgramData\Steinberg.bak"
.

Then, I set up a file-system junction pointing to the target partition/directory:
.
mklink /J "%APPDATA%\Steinberg" "E:\Users\rolan\AppData\Roaming\Steinberg"
mklink /J "%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Program Files\Steinberg" "E:\ProgramData\Steinberg"
mklink /J "%SYSTEMDRIVE%\ProgramData\Steinberg" "E:\ProgramData\Steinberg"
.
I ran Cubase/Halion/etc. through a few stressful sessions to make sure it was working properly. Once I was satisfied it worked, I deleted the original folder on my System Drive:
.
rmdir /S "%APPDATA%\Steinberg.bak"
rmdir /S "%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Program Files\Steinberg.bak"
rmdir /S "%SYSTEMDRIVE%\ProgramData\Steinberg.bak"
.
Had it not worked to satisfaction, I’d simply have removed the junction, restored the original directory, and deleted my ‘copy’:
.
del "%APPDATA%\Steinberg"
rename "%APPDATA%\Steinberg.bak" "%APPDATA%\Steinberg"
rmdir /S "E:\Users\rolan\AppData\Roaming\Steinberg"

del "%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Program Files\Steinberg"
rename "%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Program Files\Steinberg.bak" "%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Program Files\Steinberg"
rmdir /S "E:\Program Files\Steinberg"

del "%SYSTEMDRIVE%\ProgramData\Steinberg"
rename "%SYSTEMDRIVE%\ProgramData\Steinberg.bak" "%SYSTEMDRIVE%\ProgramData\Steinberg"
rmdir /S "E:\ProgramData\Steinberg"

It has worked really well for me…I also used junctions like this to move other large installs and VSTi libraries to alternate drives.

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very nice.

PS
Mac OS supports shell alisas, and file system hard, and symbolic links as well, but it’s changed loads since I’ve last used a Mac (in terms strict adherence to security protocols and such).

I’m not up to date on which would be best to use for Cubase (symbolic vs hard) or how to implement them in a way insuring proper permissions and all for Cubase to behave.

In theory, it should be a piece of cake to move things to any partition you like on a Mac using file system links or junctions, as these are very common and INTEGRAL sysop protocols for software deployment, but I’ll leave it up to a real Mac guru to advise on the best methods for something like Cubase.

Oh, one other tip…

If you haven’t installed Cubase at all yet, it’s possible to establish your junctions before hand, then install Cubase. It’ll go onto the linked partition.
If any of these directories exist on the system already, copy them over and rename with .bak extensions as seen above.
Make the links:
mklink /J “%APPDATA%\Steinberg” “E:\Users\rolan\AppData\Roaming\Steinberg”
mklink /J “%SYSTEMDRIVE%\Program Files\Steinberg” “E:\ProgramData\Steinberg”
mklink /J “%SYSTEMDRIVE%\ProgramData\Steinberg” “E:\ProgramData\Steinberg”

Then install your Steinberg stuff.

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Thank you. I made mklink function while last night,
at first, the file was moved but storage wasn’t empty back, but after reboot it fully works.
thanks all youguys.

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