Hi, all.
I didn't know about this thread before, so I'll re-post what I wrote in another thread.
Yesterday I had issues with my rF2 installation and it turned out, that the folders (junction points) of my "cache" and "packages" had dissappeared ...
I always had those two linked with a junction point (mklink /j) to one of my HDD RAIDs, for saving precious SSD space and it always worked just fine.
Consequently, when I checked the local files for errors, it wanted to download some +10GB from Steam.
I interrupted that download, exited Steam, manually copied back the cache and packages folders from my RAID and restarted Steam.
After that, everything was back at a normal state, file verification completed without errors and rF2 was running as expected.
To verify my findings, I deleted the two folders and linked them back again.
When I started another verification of my local rF2 files, the links vanished again and the +10GB download started all over.
...
So it seems, there's a fundamental difference whether those folders are physically present or "just" linked via a junction point.
However, IMHO the update process must not delete those entire folders, but only the affected packages.
Simply because it'll delete all non-steam packages and cache files as well.
Without my backup, it would have been a pain in the arm, to get back all those non-steam files.
Cheers,
Max