In short: back up your save data from previous game before uninstalling or Linux will permanently delete it. Linux handles the My Documents folders for windows games differently and creates a new one for each game you install. If you uninstall your game it will also, as I've just learned, delete the associated emulated C Drive and its My Documents folder containing your profile save data. Because of the the way Linux handles game folders TSW 7 won't detect your profile from previous games and you have to manually place save from a previous game into its (TSW7's) games save directory for it to detect and import your profile. If you uninstall the previous game first Like I did to make room on my SSD. You'll lose your save game data. Fortunately I still have my backed up TSW4 save from when I was still using windows. I skipped TSW5 and stopped playing when I switched to Linux and only started playing again when I picked up TSW6 in the recent Summer Sale. But still quite a lot of progress lost about 76hrs.
I know how you feel. i lost my TSW5 Photo folder this way. I kept TSW 5 for long because of CalTrain and had countless opportunities to back it up but i didn't
Ironically onedrive was backing up my saves without me knowing/realizing so when I set everything on fire during a "Does Proton fix some of the stuttering?" experiment I didn't need to start from 0.
So when I asked a Dovetail Ambassador who has a YouTube channel about Cloud saves and Steamdeck, I also asked him about importing my profile from TSW 6 to TSW 7, he said he didn't know so he asked Matt Peddlestone and he said you could import your profile from TSW6 to TSW7.
I am on Steam and still have all the old progress on my c drive from the previous TSW games after uninstalling those versions
Automatic import is only if TSW6 & TSW7 are using the same WINE prefix. The default Steam behaviour is creating separate WINE prefixes for each of the games in the Steam's compatdata directory (TSW6 = 3656800, TSW7 = 4678800), so by default the new game won't have access to old saves to import them automatically. To get the same profile in TSW7 as you had in TSW6 you can either simply copy the save files after launching TSW7 for the 1st time and exiting it to then created new WINE prefix, or instead of copying make a symbolic link from the old save directory in the new prefix location. In my case TSW2, TSW3 & TSW4 prefixes weren't deleted after uninstalling, but TSW5 prefix was deleted while being uninstalled. I haven't installed TSW6 even once (nor TSW7 yet), so I can't tell how it was for it.
I don't understand what you mean by, for the 1st time and exiting it to then created new WINE prefix, or instead of copying make a symbolic link from the old save directory in the new prefix location.
You don't need to launch TSW7 from my experience, the prefix was created before I launched it. You take your TSW6 save folder in your TSW6 prefix and place it in your TSW7 prefix. It has to have the same file path within the TSW7 prefix otherwise TSW7 won't be able to find it.
