Blizzard games generate preferences folders inside Documents

Some Blizzard games, such as Diablo III, Diablo IV, and Overwatch, have a flaw where, instead of obeying the default recommended settings path of the %LOCALAPPDATA% folder for storing hardware-related preferences, it stores files inside the dynamic Documents folder used on Windows systems.

In environments without any alteration of the default paths, this problem does not generate an impact, however, in environments where some dynamic profile folders have been changed, such as when enabling the backup of the documents folder on OneDrive, these Blizzard games start to consider the OneDrive path as being the correct path to create the “\Documents*gamename*” folder structure. The impact that when we open the game on a hugely different hardware setup, it can fail to open or have very incorrect video or performance settings.

Note: The Hearthstone game saves its hardware preference files properly in %LOCALAPPDATA%\Blizzard\Hearthstone, and the World of Warcraft game saves its hardware preference files in the game’s installation folder.

Note 2: OneDrive syncs symbolic links (mklink /D) and directory junctions (mklink /J), it’s not an aplicable workaround.

4 Likes

I am also having this problem, and also tried a symlink - used to freak out onedrive and fail to sync, but it apparently works now. I am unable to figure out a workaround for this, and blizzard really shouldn’t store this data here - I’m playing on two devices and having to redo my settings between the two is absurd. If nothing else, create a computer name file and use the individual system name as a differentiator.

I’m having this same issue. I’d rather not have my Diablo IV game settings saved to my OneDrive just because it’s automatically saving to my documents folder.

Please fix this blizzard.

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.