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Magician Joined: 13 Oct 2000 Posts: 463

To make CMud more compatible to Windows XP and Vista, you should move the preferences and data files to the My Documents\CMUD folder. A limited rights user does not have write access to the Program Files directory.

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 6:36 pm

We discussed this a few months ago and I have a plan to implement something like this soon. Instead of My Documents\CMUD, it will probably be called My Documents\My MUDs or My Documents\MUDs. There will be a "wizard" that lets you move your current files into this structure, and also an option to import your files from zMUD into this structure.

I've always liked software that just keeps everything in one folder...I don't like stuff scattered across the disk. But Microsoft is making this harder and harder and with Vista it will be more important to adhere to their silly standards.

Wizard Joined: 25 Mar 2003 Posts: 1113 Location: USA

I'll have to disagree with you. I like the idea of separating applications and data. It makes my life much easier if I can backup the data in My Documents and when my drive crashes, not worry about where all the data files go or if I'm going to overwrite some exe/dll by doing my restore.

Magician Joined: 13 Oct 2000 Posts: 463

I have to agree with Larkin. If all my preferences were in one directory (Documents and Settings/Username) I would be a lot happier. Windows pretty much sucks for this... my personal data (which includes my preferences, created douments, etc) is not all in one spot. Linux is a lot better in this respect. System preferences are in /etc, personal preferences are in /home/username, and 99% of all software on that OS conforms to that. That makes knowing what to back up on a Linux computer far easier.

In a perfectly conforming modern Windows app, personal preferences are in two places... the Documents & Settings folder, and the Registry. But there are so many apps like CMud that store documents in their own directory, or in the Windows directory, it's not funny. Backing up a Windows system is mostly all-or-nothing... either you backup the entire drive, or you're gonna be losing essential data.

Posted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 8:57 pm

I'm afraid I'm going to agree with Zugg on this. I don't actually use the system disk for storing anything if I can help it, it means that if Windows goes kablam and I need to reformat (which does happen on occasion) then I won't have to pfaff around moving files before I can reinstall. Drives me nuts how some programs store their stuff on the system disk and don't let me change it - will we still be able to tell it to save the data somewhere else, or at the very least move the .pkg files somewhere else and point CMUD at them?

Magician Joined: 13 Oct 2000 Posts: 463

Hmm... maybe I'm not understanding something Fang Xianfu, but what your describing doesn't really contradict what Larkin and I said. While the Documents and Settings folder itself cannot easily be moved to a different drive (though there are hacks out there that let you), the My Documents folder can, as easily as drag & drop.

Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 12:10 am

Dragging and dropping onto another disk just creates a copy of My Documents. I'm aware that I can manually create copies this way, but I shouldn't have to. The point is that if Windows has gone all runny then it's difficult to create those copies - I want the programs to save where I tell them to, perhaps with the default being My Documents. This means I can change their save location to another disk and never have to worry about manually moving the data from My Documents every now and again. Then if suddenly one day Windows decides not to play nice and only a format will fix it, I can do it right away without worrying about my most recent files.

I don't want to hack Documents and Settings anywhere else, because there's no point. The only Local App data I might need from there is emails, and I leave them on the webserver for a while for that exact reason. All I'm saying is that if CMUD is going to start saving into My Documents by default, I'd like there to be an option to change it.

Magician Joined: 13 Oct 2000 Posts: 463

Actually not true Fang Xianfu... if you move the My Documents folder to a different drive it changes its location. However, you need to MOVE it, not copy it... holding the shift key forces this in Explorer, or you can right-drag and choose move from the menu. By default, when dragging to a different drive, whatever object you are dragging is copied rather than moved, and this will not force a change in the location of My Documents... only a move will.

Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 1:51 am

...which raises the interesting question: Why, when you do this, do all your programs and the My Documents shortcut on the start bar or desktop update the location (if you choose to use them), but the shortcut in My Computer doesn't? I always took that to mean that Windows had lost track of where I'd put it. Thanks for the help Raven :D

Regardless, it doesn't change that I'd like to have the option to tell my programs where to save. It's a matter of principle :P

Magician Joined: 13 Oct 2000 Posts: 463

I have nothing against it being an option in the program, if the programmer wishes to code that feature in. I just think the default should be in My Documents for user created data.

Wanderer Joined: 03 Aug 2005 Posts: 84

I have run into problems several times because programs stored things in their own forders *coughreinstallingDivXPlayerdeletetesMoviesFoldercough* Or by programs putting things in some weird folder and not telling you so that if you have problems with program killing settings files you can fix/delete them as necessary. *CoughGIMP2.2.1DivideBy0OnBrushPaletteCough* Seperation keeps problems from occuring with your data but naturally it should be easy to find and not in some hidden folder withing a hidden folder withing a hidden folder and undocumented. THat being said, I think that Zugg has decided to do this the best way for everyone.