[Solution] How to ensure your (quick)saves will not get overwritten and lost?

Hello hello,

TLDR version: If you play on PC and don’t want to lose ANY saved game (be it quick save, auto save, hard save), read on.

W3 is quite a long game and it seems to me that quicksaves and autosaves have only a finite number of slots they can occupy. If you want anything more permanent, you have to rely on hard saves which I do not really… use… because I am either too lazy to go to main menu and do it manually, or simply get too involved and find out after 3-4 hours of playing that I did only quicksaves and if I want to go back to particular point I am screwed.

Anyway.. I did not find a quick solution to this online so I made my own.

Long story short – it is a small program that scans Witcher 3 save folder and copies all new files to another folder as soon as they appear.

I am using Windows 7, though any Windows should be fine. If you are using a console, tough luck.

Step 1:

Download Folder Monitor 1.1.0.1 from Nodesoft [106 KB ZIP]. Free, no ads, works nicely. I am a new user so I cannot link anything – google it.

Step 2:

Go to "My documents" folder you should see "The Witcher 3" folder in it

Step 3:

Create folder "W3backup" in "My documents" folder

Step 4:

Go to C:\Windows\System32\; find "xcopy.exe", right click, select Copy.

Go to "W3backup" folder you made earlier, right click in it and select "Paste Shortcut"

Rename this new shortcut to "xcopy"

Right click this shortcut select Properties and in this window change "Run: Normal Window" to "Run: Minimized"

(all this shit with shorcuts is because otherwise the small console windows would pop up for a milisecond and throw you out of the game for a moment)

Step 5:

Open the downloaded ZIP file and extract "FolderMonitor.exe" to this "W3backup" folder

Step 6:

Run "FolderMonitor.exe". Nothing big will happen, there should be only one icon in System Tray. If it is not there, download newest .NET Framework from Microsoft [1 MB web installer, ~106 MB download version 4.5.1] and try again.

Step 7:

Double click icon of FolderMonitor in System Tray. Window opens. Right click in it and select "Add Folder". Navigate to "your_user_name\My Documents\The Witcher 3\gamesaves" Select this folder and click OK.

Step 8:

There will be new text line in the window, right click it and select "Options".

In first tab "Events": Select: Created. Unselect everything else.

Step 9a:

In second tab write next line into "Command". replace "your_user_name" with your Windows user name of course.

Code:

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"C:\Users\your_user_name\Documents\W3backup\xcopy.lnk"

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Step 9b:

Write the next line in the "Arguments". replace "your_user_name" with your Windows user name of course.

Code:

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"5" "C:\Users\your_user_name\Documents\W3backup"

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Step 10:

Close this window with OK.

Step 11: Right click FolderMonitor icon in System tray, select "Run at logon\All users"

Step 12: Right click FolderMonitor icon in System tray, select "Options". Select "No visual notification" in first tab, UNselect "Stop screen saver", select "No sound" in second tab. Close the window with OK.

Step 13: That is it.

All files that appear it your Witcher 3 gamesaves folder will now be copied as soon as they are created to folder W3backup. Then you can find all old saves when you sort them by date of creation. Process is automatic, starts when your PC starts.

There would be pictures if necessary but I am a new user with <10 posts, so.. no pictures for you.

This works for me nicely, if I ****ed up somewhere in the instructions, let me know. Good luck

[Solution] How to ensure your (quick)saves will not get overwritten and lost?