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Author Topic: Can Symlinks or Junctions be used with Media Center?  (Read 1416 times)

Curtis

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Can Symlinks or Junctions be used with Media Center?
« on: April 03, 2014, 11:32:18 pm »

I've used Media Center since version 8 and I've never gotten it to recognize junctions in Windows (currently Windows 8), though I never pursued it much either. For example, I have tried creating a symlink and alternatively a junction at C:\Media\Music that points to my physical music collection at M:\Media\Music. If the filename paths of my files are changed from M:\Media\Music to C:\Media\Music MC no longer finds the files. Am I doing something wrong or is this just the way it is? I'm surprised because all my other applications have no problems seeing junctions exactly like physical locations, only MC.
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magnust

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Re: Can Symlinks or Junctions be used with Media Center?
« Reply #1 on: April 04, 2014, 11:23:50 am »

I do it with mklink on all computers at home. So they all have "e:\music" being pointed to \\mediaserver\music. And disk e: is just a small partition of 50MB.
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Curtis

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Re: Can Symlinks or Junctions be used with Media Center?
« Reply #2 on: April 05, 2014, 04:31:20 pm »

Okay, but in your MC library how are the filenames/paths stored? I want mine stored as (in your example) E:\Music, not \\mediaserver\music. That I cannot do.  MC wants to copy to E:\Music if I change the filenames from \\mediaserver\music, and then it can't because it finds the files already there...

In my setup I want to have two computers with mirrored copies of my media, \\comp1\M:\music and comp2\Q:\music. I want each computer to have a junction to \\comp1\C:\music and \\comp2\C:\music, and I want MC's library to find the files on the C: drive in each case. This would let me maintain mirror copies of my media and playback from each local machine rather than across my network. If someone in my living room trashes my install on comp2 or deletes something, my comp1 is unaffected. I currently let guests stream from my comp2 while only I stream from comp1. By using the junctions media is always referenced from a drive C: regardless of how I might change/add/merge physical disks on either machine in nonsymmetrical ways. Even my MC library is located on the two drives and remains identical and up to date across machines (so long as I sync from comp1 to comp2 when I make changes). To synchronize the two machines I use an external program (Vice Versa Pro) to sync from comp1 C: to comp2 C:.
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MrC

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Re: Can Symlinks or Junctions be used with Media Center?
« Reply #3 on: April 05, 2014, 08:51:50 pm »

Okay, but in your MC library how are the filenames/paths stored? I want mine stored as (in your example) E:\Music, not \\mediaserver\music. That I cannot do.  MC wants to copy to E:\Music if I change the filenames from \\mediaserver\music, and then it can't because it finds the files already there...

The file names are determine based on the file's path when first imported.  Look in Tools > Import > Configure Auto-Import - check the paths there.  Use either the UNC or the Drive form of path, but not both.

Don't just change the path.  See Moving Files for how to update the Library to point the Filename field to another location.  Use Rename, Move and Copy in Update mode to accomplish this.
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Curtis

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Re: Can Symlinks or Junctions be used with Media Center?
« Reply #4 on: April 06, 2014, 11:43:29 pm »

Thanks! I must be going blind, my problem was not seeing the "Update database..." option in the Rename, Move, & Copy Files dialog box.
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