Technical [Windows 8.1 64-bit] Duplicated game folder in \AppData\Local\VirtualStore

[Anywyn]

Greetings ! :)

Recently I noticed that on Windows 8.1 Pro (64-bity) the Warmane WoW game folder is duplicated in the \AppData\Local\VirtualStore.
This means that the game takes up the double of the hard disk space because it exists in 2 different places

C:\Users\WindowsProfile\AppData\Local\VirtualStore \Program Files (x86)\World of Warcraft - Mists of Pandaria 5.4.2 (23,75 GB)
C:\Program Files (x86)\World of Warcraft - Mists of Pandaria 5.4.2 (27,80 GB)

As you can see from the images attached below most of the space is used by the Data folder (that contain all the game assets like models and textures that use quite a lot of space).
I already tried to get rid of the Data folder in the VirtualStore Wow folder, but this gets recreated the next time I launch the game.
I haven't tried already to delete the Data folder in the Program Files (x86) Wow folder because I am unsure if I can brake the game in some way (as you can see the folder sizes between the two Data folders are different, so I am unsure which files are still used from the Program Files (x86) game folder).

IMPORTANT NOTE: this issue doesn't happen, on my current system, with the original WoW game, that I have installed already in a different directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\World of Warcraft

From what I can remember the issue described above was not happening on Windows 7.
I did some research on the internet (and on the forums but with ho results) and I found out that this is due to Microsoft settings on Windows, 8.1.

Do you have any hint or workaround to the issue described above?

Many thanks in advance ! :)

[Anywyn]

I did some additional research and I managed to find a solution.

The problem is related to the "ownership" rights on the Wow folder and subfolders.

You can read more about this in the following pages:
1) http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...e-d2b9cf5bcff6
2) http://www.thewindowsclub.com/take-ownership-windows-8

You can also watch this great video on youtube that explains several ways to do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX3Ev_MfyPM

I also found an old "blue" post on the official WoW forums that was suggesting to run the WoW executables as admininstrator (that I was already doing but was not enough: the real solution is "folder & subfolders ownership"): http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2226266248

By the way, following the hints from the youtube video I managed to set the proper rights for both Administrator and Users over the WoW Warmane folder.
I deleted the WoW folder in VitualStore, logged in and out from the game, I checked the VirtualStore folder again and the duplicated WoW folder has not been recreated.
So problem solved (and not I can happily save almost 24 GB). :)

I hope this can help other people that might incur in this issue. :)