gec Posted December 24, 2009 Report Share Posted December 24, 2009 i'm not sure if this is a good title to this but here is what i'm trying to do. i'm not the expert in the IL2 folder structure so if i'm wrong please correct me. there are some folders that are the same across all versions of the IL2 (moded or not). like users, records, Paintschemes, missions, conf.ini file, ... well they r not the same but they could be shared across the various installs. for example the Users folder. every time i make a new copy of the game i need to replace the users folder with the one that contains my current settings. or if i make a change in my configuration i need to copy Users folder over all the installs i have. what i want to do is make a some kind of link in all of the installs that would point to one place. in unix systems that's called symlink. creating a shortcut in windows is not the same. double-click will follow the shortcut but if u replace let say Users folders with shortcut the game is not going to follow it and u'll have to create new pilot with new settings. symlinks used in unix in other hand are readable by the system and the system can follow them. for example in windows if you move Program Files folder to a different disk programs installed in it are not going to work any more cause Program Files directory is not where it should be. If u create a shortcut pointing to a new location of the Program Files it is not going to work. But there is one thing in windows 2000 and newer that is called Junction that acts like symlink in Unix. so if u in the place where Program Files used to be create symlink called Program Files and point it to moved Program Files folder everything will work fine. more info can be found here and here. so this is what i'm going to do and test: - copy my users folder, paintschemes, missions, and conf.ini file to a one central place - rename the files and folders mentioned in all my installs and replace them with junctions to a files and folders in the new location. - test how it works off course it would be good to rearrange missions folder so that i always know what mission is for what game version. now this post definitely stretches my English capabilities so if something sounds weird be free and correct me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum B16Enk Posted December 24, 2009 1. DDz Quorum Report Share Posted December 24, 2009 It will work just as you say Gec, and is a great idea. I use junctions often, most recently to move the program files and documents folders off the C drive to the D drive on a netbook, it had a mere 4GB C drive You could get creative with this! Any merit in creating a junction for the conf.ini do you think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gec Posted December 24, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 24, 2009 def action for mklink is for file. so if u use let say mklink c:\conf.ini d:\conf.ini without extra parameters it should work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gec Posted December 24, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 24, 2009 one more thing; mklink works only on ntfs partitions! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum Sid Posted December 24, 2009 1. DDz Quorum Report Share Posted December 24, 2009 now this post definitely stretches my English capabilities so if something sounds weird be free and correct me. Currently your English is way easier to understand than mine...your post is perfectly clear gec. The 'Junctions' is a great idea when considering the size of 'Paintschemes' on it's own, three installs of 5gb each takes up a lot of room! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum B16Enk Posted December 24, 2009 1. DDz Quorum Report Share Posted December 24, 2009 Yep, must use NTFS You have seen this? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gec Posted December 24, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 24, 2009 Yep, must use NTFS You have seen this? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx yes m8, but this is way simpler and no need to dl anything. works just like junction works on Vista and Win 7 tho Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gec Posted December 24, 2009 Author Report Share Posted December 24, 2009 now this post definitely stretches my English capabilities so if something sounds weird be free and correct me. Currently your English is way easier to understand than mine...your post is perfectly clear gec. The 'Junctions' is a great idea when considering the size of 'Paintschemes' on it's own, three installs of 5gb each takes up a lot of room! thx Sid. Now i'm so proud of my self Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum FoolTrottel Posted December 24, 2009 1. DDz Quorum Report Share Posted December 24, 2009 You should be proud. Great idea! Tried it, and it works brilliantly, you can't even tell it's active, you don't see a thing of it doing its job! I'm not going to use it myself though. For that particular same reason. I'm too much a file/folder-browser guy, and I'd very likely make a mistake and delete a file, or folder 'shared' via Junction/Mklink. (And I'd get confused quickly too ) I know myself too well.... this will take me much too much time for to get used to, versus the (solely in my opinion) 'limited' gain. And the risks I'd be taking! Oh my! My simple mind will just go for some redundancy and extra wasted disk-space. That's just me, you go for it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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