Swapping MSTS to a different drive

[codrivermike]

With my MSTS folder now at 50gb I think it's time that it moved from the current and reletively tiny :C drive to the 300gb :F. But I'm scared. It's taken nigh on three years of sorting to get my MSTS the way it is. To lose it would be a disaster.
I've seached the forum for advice nad I'm sure I've seen threads on the subject but I can't find them. However, is this the right thing to do?

Rename my MSTS folder to something else...

Then, Uninstall Train simulator

Next, Reinstall Train simulator and the 1.2 patch on my F drive

Then take my original TS folder, rename it back to train simulator and then drag it complete across to the new installation, overwriting everything.

Finally, delete the old folder.

Does that make sense and, more importantly, will it work?

Best regards

Michael

[dkightley]

Makes sense to me....

If if goes fruit-shaped, you'll alway have the original folder you copied from.

[alanch]

I assume you are using Trainstore, so make sure you unstore everything first. Once you have moved MSTS, you can point the Trainstore storage folder to the new drive - that must be on the same drive as MSTS, but Trainstore iiself can stay on the original drive if you want.

When I moved everything to a new drive, I just hacked the registry and edited all the pointers for MSTS and all the utilities I've installed, but that isn't for the faint hearted. Worked perfectly!

Alan

Please have a look at my railway photograph site - http://alan-lewis-chambers.fotopic.net/ - lots of British steam and early diesels

[jbilton]

Hi Mike
Yes that sounds like a fail safe way to move the main MSTS.
However I have about 20 different MSTS, on three different hard drives.
I split these into different regions, eras etc.
Never had any problems.Across these 3 drives I must have over 200Gbs
Cheers
Jon

[codrivermike]

I'm going to go ahead with the move this weekend. However, I'm worried about moving train-store, route riter and conbuilder. Any advice would be appreciated

Michael

[alanch]

You don't have to move any of those unless you really need to - the only thing that does need moving is the Trainstore storage folder - that must be on the same drive as MSTS.

I just unstored everything, moved MSTS, and then used the Trainstore option to specify where the new storage folder would be - it creates the folder.

Both Conbuilder and Routeriter have options to specify where the MSTS folder is - or you can hack the Registry.

Alan

[joebandit1]

Shameless plug here, but try looking at my latest non-free utility here:

http://www.conbuilder.3dtrains.com/manager.html

Lets you keep a listing of paths, switch to one of them, create short-cuts, with out the need for a registry change, run conbuilder on whichever one you like and several other things. Does not work with conbuilder_lite though, only the real conbuilder.

[dkightley]

Shameless!!

[codrivermike]

Job done God. That was scary

First I copied the entire TS folder over to the F: drive and then renamed it "Fred"(well. I had to call it something)
Then I installed Train Simulator into that drive. Having done that I renamed "fred" back to TS and dragged it into the new Microsoft games folder and clicked overwrite everything.
Trainstore was a case of creating a new folder for it in F: and then changing the path. Conbuilder and Route Riter both allowed me to change the path to where the MSTS folder was.
What I missed was changing the path in Train Store to where it needs to find the train.exe. Once that was sorted then everythig worked ok.
I did get a shock when I launched MSTS for the first time though. I needed to reinstall "NoLogo" to get rid of the start-up graphics and of course it was in 800x600x16 so the driver aids and the F11 screen were HUGE!!!

Anyways, job done. MSTS is now on a much larger drive and everything seems to work ok.
Now to check that Flight Sim still works.


Michael