Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Bill Kearney]

With windows 7 they've added a new environmental variable called LOCALAPPDATA.  It's intended for apps to use as a reference for storage of files specific to the user, but only stored locally and not syncronized with a network-stored profile (should the user being logged in with a roaming profile).

It would appear MC17 defaults to using APPDATA and ignores LOCALAPPDATA.  This means any and all files MC wants to store get put into the roaming profile.  This can present a problem if the user is connected using a roaming profile.  On one machine the roaming profile had ballooned to over 2gb in size, due mainly to MC storage of files.  This made logins timeout because it was taking much too long to copy all the files from the networked profile. 

I've since gone and manually changed all of MC's path settings to avoid using the roaming profile location.  For core settings it's fine to use APPDATA, but for stuff that's downloaded (like coverart) or regenerated (like thumbnails) it would be nice to avoid putting them in the roaming profile location.

It would be nice if MC understood how to use LOCALAPPDATA on its own. 

Using a network location for storage is fine, using the roaming profile location is the problem.  That location gets reloaded and resaved during login/logoff situations.  For small stuff that's fine, but for the ton of stuff that MC uses it's a problem.

All too often people just bail out on trying to understand how network profiles work.  They're really not that hard to use, but they do require the application programs to avoid making things worse.

[Bill Kearney]

And let me follow up on this, there appear to be quite a few places inside MC17 that depend upon some [pathname] variables.  Is there any documentation on where these are set, or based from?  It's not clear where the original [Install Path] and [App Data Path] defaults are stored.  That and the others, like Documents Path, Music Path, Video Path, Pictures Path.

Is it possible to reconfigure these after an install has been done?  As in, I'd like to have these things moved out of the Roaming folder and into the Local.  Not all of these location appear to be editable from the UI inside MC.  Specifically the DLNA Library, Plugins, Stores, Temp and Thumbnails don't have an editing UI (at least not that I could find).

If I just reinstall can I reload the library from a backup and have it use whatever paths I select during the install?  Or at they going to jump right back into where they were before the backup?

[Matt]

Moving some things out of the roaming folder is on our list for the future.  Realistically this is probably a v18 type change.

[Bill Kearney]

Can I get some insight, meanwhile, on making the move manually?  Otherwise it absolutely kills using MC in a setup I've got that depends upon using domain users and roaming profiles.  The login times are cripplingly slow. 

Can I alter the User Settings.ini or other files in-between the install and the first run?  In a way that will lead MC17 to default to using directories of my choosing instead of the roaming %APPDATA%?  Can I change the "[App Data Path\]" string to another path?  If so, can it be based on an environmental variable, or would it have to be a static string?  Could it be a UNC share path, or would it have to be based on drive letter?   

In checking this in-between time after install, but before accepting the license on a first run, I don't see much in the registry or in files that shapes path name locations.  Not as many as I've seen on an install of MC on a different machine after it's already fully operational.  I'm guessing a lot of what it chooses is decided programmatically?  Is there a place where a string miight be consulted before an programmed choice is made?  As in, a value that, when present, MC can/will use instead of querying the OS for the locations? 

I realize, of course, this might pose other issues down the line, but those won't matter if the install doesn't get off the ground to start with.

I'd really like to have the configuration parts of MC to be in the roaming profile without all the data itself.  That I'd want on a network share as individual access to those files isn't terribly slow.  It's just the burden of a whole transfer during login/logoff that's killing me here.  But I'd still like a user to be able to move from machine to machine (assuming it has MC on it already) and get their MC setup to follow them.

How does a portable install work?  Might that be an alternative?