Documents Override (Windows only)

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What is it for?
This tool can override the Documents path used by the game. You can also create multiple profiles, each using a different path. This is useful if you want to keep your mods on a drive with more space or if you want a separate profile for some challenge.

Short instructions
  1. Extract files to the same folder as the game exe.
  2. Edit "documents.ini".
  3. Add "-profile=profile_name" to the shortcut's target where "profile_name" matches the section in the ".ini" file.

Detailed instructions
  1. Download the archive.
  2. Extract it. There are 4 files in the archive.
  3. First open your game folder. By default:
    • EA app installs the game to "C:\Program Files\EA Games\The Sims 4"
    • Steam installs the game to "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\The Sims 4"
    Then, inside that location, open the folder with your game exe - "Game\Bin".
  4. Move the 4 extracted files to where your game exe is.
  5. Edit "documents.ini" file to your liking:
    • if you want to change the default folder uncomment (remove ";") line 4 (see the screenshot below) and set it to desired path
    • if you want to use another profile edit the existing ones or add a new one:
      Code: 
      [profile_name]
Documents=folder path
      Don't use spaces in the profile name!
You can use a different profile by editing your game shortcut. But first you need to create a new one:
  1. Right click on the game exe ("TS4_Launcher_x64.exe"), select "Send to" and then "Desktop (create shortcut)". If you're on Windows 11 - hold Shift key when clicking the right mouse button to open the full menu.
  2. Go to desktop.
  3. Right click on the new shortcut, select Properties.
  4. At the end of the "Target" field add a space and then "-profile=profile_name", where "profile_name" is the name of the profile you added to the "documents.ini". See the green underlines on the screenshot below.



How to force DirectX 9 mode
At the moment of writing this the game has 3 exe files: "TS4_Launcher_x64.exe", "TS4_DX9_x64.exe" and "TS4_x64.exe". When you run the game from EA app or Steam - they run the launcher exe, which decides if you can run the DirectX 11 version or not. If you can, it runs "TS4_x64.exe". And if you can't, it runs "TS4_DX9_x64.exe" (DirectX 9 version). This can be changed in the game settings, you can force the game to run the DirectX 9 version. There's one issue - this tool properly overrides the Documents location for both DirectX 9 and 11 exe files, but not for the launcher exe! That means when you change options in game to force DirectX 9 mode - it will be saved to the folder of your choice. And the launcher will read the option from the default location. So if you want to force the DirectX 9 mode - open "Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 4\Options.ini", search for "forcedx9" and set the value from 0 to 1.

How does it work?
First of all my tool needs to be somehow loaded into the game. For this I use Ultimate ASI Loader, version 4.59 (archived link in case the previous one goes down). That's where "wininet.dll" comes from. "wininet.ini" is a config file for ASI Loader.

"documents.ini" is a config file for my tool. And the main brains is of course the last file, "documents.asi". It's a normal DLL file with extension renamed to ".asi" (that's what ASI Loader looks for). The game uses "SHGetFolderPathW" function to find the Documents path. My tool hooks to that function and spoofs the response. That's pretty much it.

Changelog
2025-01-20 - v1.0.1, rename both "version" files to "wininet" (EA app doesn't like "version.dll"), remove 32-bit version (Legacy Edition is no longer supported), update description (add install location from EA app, change exe name, add section about launcher and DX version)
2021-08-15 - v1.0.0, initial upload
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