A few games I bought recently seem to have a new version of the installer that unfortunately no longer allows brackets in the installation path. Games I've tried that include the new installer are SHOGO, Hotline Miami and Freespace 2.

As I'm running Windows 7 64-bit and my Games directory is in Program Files (x86), this means I can no longer install GoG games with the new installer to that directory. Is there a fix or workaround available? Alternatively will the games that have been updated with the new installer receive an update to fix this annoying issue?

This is really MS' fault for using a directory with special characters in it.

If you really must install those programs in that directory, you can probably create a new link to it with a name like Program Files - x86 or something like that and point it to the original directory. Then install the games to the linked directory.

mklink /D "c:\Program Files (x86)" "c:\Program Files - x86"

Or something like that should work. But, I haven't tried this so I'm not sure how well it actually works. I'm never sure why folks are so obsessed about things of this nature.

I'm guessing it doesn't like the brackets perhaps?
Assuming the first two folders in your C: drive beginning with the letters 'progra' are "Program Files" and "Program Files (x86)", the latter will have an alternative filepath, "C:\PROGRA~2\", used to take the spaces out for the benefit of DOS prompts and such. (If there are more then the folders are numbered in alphabetical order)
Putting this instead of "C:\Program Files (x86)" (e.g. C:\PROGRA~2\GOG.com\insertgamehere) might work. Hope it's of some help!


EDIT: Just tested this with the Tyrian 2000 installer (this is a Win7 x64 laptop) and it worked perfectly. I think it's the newer installer as it seems different to the one used for Theme Hospital and Populous 3. Weirdly the filepath sees a fullstop as an invalid character, but the tilde in PROGRA~2 is accepted, and the folder goes in the right place. So hopefully this ought to work for you too.

Why not just use this location?

C:\Games\GOG\...

Works for me.

Thanks so much for this, works perfectly!

This will probably work as long as you don't copy folders around that start with "Progra". It's very well possible that you'll never do this, but keep it in mind. This solution depends on the fact that your games are in the second folder that has been created on the C: drive and that has a name starting with "Progra". If this changes for whatever reason, the games installed that way won't find their folders files anymore.

Eeeeeenteresting. I hadn't thought of it like that; had assumed for some reason that it would replace with the expanded version. But you're right, the registry entries for the one I tested all keep PROGRA~2 in the filepaths.
Not an ideal solution then, but as long as the x86 folder remains the second in alphabetical order there shouldn't be any issues.

(It all comes back to what hedwards said in the first reply -- why on Earth did Microsoft choose to put special characters in a major folder name?)

It depends on the order of creation, so usually there shouldn't be a problem, unless you create a new folder starting with "Progra", move files there, and then rename that folder "Program Files (x86)". In that case the moved files will now be under "Progra~3". But it's not a very likely scenario.

On the other hand, the whole reason to change the default folder in the GOG installer was to get the games _away_ from "Program Files (x86)", which is a protected folder and causes compatibility problems between older games and newer operating systems. So, personally, while I acknowledge the ingenuity of the solution you suggested, I'd still recommend people to simply stop using the "Program Files (x86)" folder for their games. :)