How to backup the games saves in Windows XP, Vista/7

windows

As the question stated, just how can I backup my game saves?

I play lots of games; some of them, like Skyrim, are using the following directory in Vista/7:

%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Mygames\

However, where can I locate the rest of the games?

I don't mean all of them, just the most common locations of game saves that most games use in Windows XP and Windows Vista/7 so I can back them up.

Edit:

What I mean is the locations that games most commonly use, not just one location.
For example, I have Skyrim, Kingdom of Amalur: Reckoning, Resident Evil: Operation Racoon City, Binary Domain, Rage, Tomb Raider: Underworld, Dead Space, and Amnesia in the directory I provided. I only found Reckoning and Skyrim, plus Reckoning doesn't look like game saves at all because it only contains *.ini files, which I believe are settings files.

Best Answer

The most common savegame locations are:

  • My Documents (usually subfolders, often 'My Games' or the publisher's name)
  • Saved Games folder introduced in Vista (I think)
  • AppData (C:\Users\%account%\AppData)
  • Steam's userdata folder (in the Steam directory, usually backed up automatically to the cloud)
  • The game's folder, mostly used by ancient games
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