Struggling with getting through Viva New Vegas

Earlier this week my New Vegas save file got corrupted 23 hours into the game and I completely lost the save (no the new game-load strategy didn't work) even though I installed basics like NVSE and the 4G patcher. I'm trying to do the complete Viva New Vegas mod for utilities and performance now so I hopefully don't have this happen again.

The issue I'm running into is that the mods, specifically the manual install ones like the decompressor and Ultimate Edition ESM remaster, can't run their code if New Vegas is installed into program files. Unfortunately, it looks like Steam has removed the ability to make custom storage files and just defaults to C:/program files/ without being able to add a new location for installations, so I don't think I can install the game into a C:/games/ folder like I want to which is required for getting all the mods downloaded.

Does anyone have a workaround for this? Or maybe there's a simplified version of Viva New Vegas that can work inside program files?

Also willing to download a select handful of mods so I can just get the game running without crashing the moment I leave Doc Goodson's, I'm not picky but the game is literally unplayable on my end currently.