If you try installing Dead Space on Windows 7 and you happen to have a custom ‘My Documents’ location - Dead Space will likely fail to install, citing some error about being unable to write to a directory. What it doesn’t tell you is that it’s not the game folder it has a problem with - it’s the user profile.

With Dead Space 2 being 9.99 on Steam this week, I had to give it a try - which means assuming the role of Isaac Clarke once more in Dead Space 1 to rekindle my love and brush up on the awesome story (plus, it’s a great late night game!).

But would it install? No. MSI provided the usual ‘Cannot write to directory’ error which interrupts everything. After a little investigation, I found a fix.

Simply re-create the original ‘Documents’ folder within C:\Users\<user name>\Documents and make it your default ‘My Documents’ folder (so your Windows 7 libraries point to this location). Bam - Dead Space will suddenly install thanks to being able to create the ‘Electronic Arts’ folder in your personal profile.

All the compatibility modes in the world didn’t seem to help this strange little bug, and as usual - Electronic Arts refuse to acknowledge this little failure, nevertheless - a simple fix.

Well done EA, I look forward to the next great game you epically fail to package properly. Don’t forget to compile it, eh?

	Posted December 22, 2011
	Written by John Payne