Problem transfering P3D installation to different drive

[Zylx]

Hello, I'm using P3Dv5.4 and I am trying to move the entire installation to another drive while keeping the Addon Scenery folder on the old drive.  I plan to create Symlinks for the main installation folder and the Addon Scenery folder.  I cut and pasted all of the P3D installation files, minus the Addon Scenery folder to the new Prepar3D v5 folder I created on the new drive.

When it was almost done transferring the files, I got a message saying it can't move the Fonts folder because it's files are being used or is open in another application which is BS because it's not, so it won't let me move the Fonts folder and I can't figure out how to move it or why Windows thinks it's being used.

I would appreciate any suggestions on how to fix this so I can move the Fonts folder over to the new main installation folder.

Thanks

Edited August 4 by Zylx

[Rogen]

It's likely Windows giving the message as the fonts have probably been installed into Windows itself.

Cheers

[Zylx]

6 minutes ago, Rogen said:

It's likely Windows giving the message as the fonts have probably been installed into Windows itself.

Cheers

If that's the case then how do I fix this?  I need to be able to move the Fonts over to the new installation folder.

Also because of this I am unable to delete or change the name of the old install folder too which I think would cause an issue if I try to create a symlink with the same folder name on the same drive.

Edited August 4 by Zylx

[Rogen]

Copy the fonts over first (they should still copy), then take a look in Windows settings or control panel for the Font's management tool and see what you can see and manage.

Google is a good resource tool for finding std. windows help.

Cheers

[Rogen]

Bty, there will be many registry references refering to the original install location if what you're doing is a straight move of files, there's a lot of potential for issues.

My thoughts are what you should do is first backup the P3D install, then uninstall and re-install in the desired location.

You could then copy over the files you'd backed up, although there might still be a need to review various pathing for items such as lua and panel configs etc. depends really on what you've got installed, but hey if waht you're doing works ok for yourself then all good.

Also the addon scenery folder is defined in the scenery.cfg, so no need for symbolic links as you could just change the reference pathing in the scenery.cfg

For example I have P3D installed to H: drive with addon scenery pointing to E:\_Global_Addons\Addon Scenery

The intent is having no need to move P3D itself as it will be a fairly consistant size, where addon scenery can live on another drive with enough space to expand.

Note this is separate to the use of add-on.xml locations.

Cheers

Edited August 4 by Rogen

[Ray Proudfoot]

@Zylx, I'd be more inclined to examine the drive where P3D is installed and move other programs elsewhere. Moving a correctly installed P3D installation is fraught with danger and as Rogen pointed out there are Registry references to consider.

I did something similar for a friend some years ago when he wanted FSX moving to another drive. I edited the Registry with the new path but it took over 45 mins there were so many.

Consider this absolutely last resort. Prioritise moving other software first. Out of interest what size is the drive and what % does P3D occupy?

[beechcaptain]

Listen to these wise men!  You are inviting a whole plethora of issues by not uninstalling P3D and then reinstalling them to the new location.  Reading your initial post made me cringe.  

I hope you get this resolved.  Best wishes.

[Zylx]

Thank yo guys for the great advice.  I never realized there would be so many potential issues doing this.  @Ray Proudfoot the size of my P3D install is about 600GB and it's on a 4TB drive.  The reason I want to move it is because the drive it's on now is an HDD and the drive I want to move it onto is an SSD.  I'm tired of waiting for long load times.  I do have all my Orbx scenery saved on an SSD but I still have longer load times then I would like, it doesn't seem to make much difference so I wanted to move the whole P3D installation to an SSD as well for faster loading.

Maybe I'll just have to leave it as it is and just deal with it until some day when I decide to to a complete P3D reinstall from scratch, including all my hundreds of addons.

[drobinho]

An alternative approach you might consider is cloning & replacing the drive. For example, when I migrated my P3D install onto a new nvme drive, I:

• Installed the new nvme drive and assigned it a random, new drive letter
• Cloned all content - including the folder structure - over from the old drive to the new drive
• Used Disk Management to give my new drive the old drive letter that my previous drive was using
  • This step is vital to ensuring that all those pathway mappings that Rogen refers to above remain valid

FWIW if your new drive is a Samsung, and your old HDD contains your Windows install, then you can use the Samsung Magician software to clone your Windows-installed drives.

[Ray Proudfoot]

@Zylx, an HDD. Ouch! I can understand why you need to move it to something faster.

You can’t have two simultaneous installations so that is ruled out. Uninstalling and reinstalling is your only recourse unless you’re an expert at editing both the Registry and multiple add-on.cfg files and your scenery.cfg. Assuming you’re not then …

The uninstall process will only uninstall what it originally installed. So your third party scenery addons may not require reinstalling. Just the path editing in scenery.cfg. But additional aircraft will require uninstalling / reinstalling. I hope you don’t have many.

Print the contents of scenery.cfg and also the contents of the two add-on.cfg files. They’re located in Program Data and also your Roaming subfolder. Plan meticulously and check everything is okay after each reinstall.

This is something that will take you some time to complete. I suggest you uninstall P3D first then reinstall it in its new location. Then check it works okay. After that the had work begins. The good news is you don’t have to install everything at once.

[Ray Proudfoot]

2 minutes ago, drobinho said:

An alternative approach you might consider is cloning & replacing the drive.

An excellent suggestion and one I hadn’t considered. A Crucial T700 NVMe is amongst the fastest available.

[Zylx]

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

@Zylx, an HDD. Ouch! I can understand why you need to move it to something faster.

You can’t have two simultaneous installations so that is ruled out. Uninstalling and reinstalling is your only recourse unless you’re an expert at editing both the Registry and multiple add-on.cfg files and your scenery.cfg. Assuming you’re not then …

The uninstall process will only uninstall what it originally installed. So your third party scenery addons may not require reinstalling. Just the path editing in scenery.cfg. But additional aircraft will require uninstalling / reinstalling. I hope you don’t have many.

Print the contents of scenery.cfg and also the contents of the two add-on.cfg files. They’re located in Program Data and also your Roaming subfolder. Plan meticulously and check everything is okay after each reinstall.

This is something that will take you some time to complete. I suggest you uninstall P3D first then reinstall it in its new location. Then check it works okay. After that the had work begins. The good news is you don’t have to install everything at once.

I do know how to edit the Registry and I know where to find the P3D entries to delete them but as for the cfg files I don't know about that.

Thank you again for the advice, this is extremely helpful.

[Zylx]

1 hour ago, drobinho said:

An alternative approach you might consider is cloning & replacing the drive. For example, when I migrated my P3D install onto a new nvme drive, I:

• Installed the new nvme drive and assigned it a random, new drive letter
• Cloned all content - including the folder structure - over from the old drive to the new drive
• Used Disk Management to give my new drive the old drive letter that my previous drive was using
  • This step is vital to ensuring that all those pathway mappings that Rogen refers to above remain valid

FWIW if your new drive is a Samsung, and your old HDD contains your Windows install, then you can use the Samsung Magician software to clone your Windows-installed drives.

It is a great idea maybe I can give that a try.  Is Acronis True Image still the best option for cloning software or is there a better option now days?

[Zylx]

8 hours ago, beechcaptain said:

Listen to these wise men!  You are inviting a whole plethora of issues by not uninstalling P3D and then reinstalling them to the new location.  Reading your initial post made me cringe.  

I hope you get this resolved.  Best wishes.

I will definitely listen to them.  I just moved all the files back to the original folder for now so no harm no foul.

[Ray Proudfoot]

8 hours ago, Zylx said:

I do know how to edit the Registry and I know where to find the P3D entries to delete them but as for the cfg files I don't know about that.

Thank you again for the advice, this is extremely helpful.

I really would recommend the advice given by drobinho. Instructions on this site will help.

https://uk.pcmag.com/ssds/134178/how-to-copy-your-windows-installation-to-an-ssd