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| Bespoke locations may be confusing 20/01/2014 at 07:50 #54040 | |
maxand
1637 posts |
I downloaded the v4 System Files and found they automatically installed themselves into C:\Program Files (x86)\SimSig (running 64-bit Windows 7). Now these new files in the root (\SimSig) directory appeared to be muddled with my old (pre-loader) files. What a great start. The solution was obviously to create a "bespoke location" (aka customized location) for the new loader version, choosing C:\Program Files (x86)\SimSigLdr. But first it was necessary to locate and delete all the recently installed system 4 files, which I did by ordering the contents of the C:\Program Files (x86)\SimSig folder by date of modification, the most recently added at the top. Next, I reinstalled the v4 System Files into C:\Program Files (x86)\SimSigLdr. On inspection, three subfolders were also created, C:\Program Files (x86)\SimSigLdr\SimSig, C:\Program Files (x86)\SimSigLdr\SimSig\Simulations and C:\Program Files (x86)\SimSigLdr\SimSig\Timetables. I then installed Westbury v4 into C:\Program Files (x86)\SimSigLdr\SimSig. However, on trying to play Westbury I found it didn't show up in the Select simulation window, which seems a bit user-unfriendly. After wasting half an hour or so trying to trace the problem, I discovered that one actually needs to tell the loader where to look for simulations if they happen to be in a "bespoke location". Unbelievable, particularly for payware. Okay, so I clicked Folder options and saw "Folder locations for simulations and timetables". Taking this literally, I added C:\Program Files (x86)\SimSigLdr\SimSig\Simulations to the list, checking its box and unchecking the others. Still no joy - the Westbury sim stubbornly refused to appear in the Select simulation window. So I added another folder location, C:\Program Files (x86)\SimSigLdr\SimSig\Timetables. Thankfully, Westbury now appeared on the list, but confusingly, this folder path appeared in the Folder Options path only as C:\Program Files (x86)\SimSigLdr\SimSig. Why wasn't the \Timetables subfolder mentioned?? After playing with these paths a bit more I found that I need only have specified the parent folder, i.e., C:\Program Files (x86)\SimSigLdr\SimSig. SimSig would look there for both simulations and timetables. The Wiki page > Possible issues states: Quote: The Loader does not list any simulationsI suppose that if I really needed to install simulations and timetables in completely different locations with different parent folders, then separate filepaths would have to be added. Maybe if I was developing a new TT this might be reasonable. (rest of this paragraph deleted). (Added) I guess the main points I'm trying to make are that: 1) This major upgrade of SimSig should by default be installed in a completely different folder though with a similar title, e.g., SimSig4; 2) Once the System Files are installed there, installation of Loader (Launcher) sims should automatically use the same subfolders, without the user having to delve into the innards of the filing system; 3) If the user wishes to change the name of the parent folder, e.g., from a default of "SimSig4" to, say, "SimSigLdr", this need only be done once, at the time of installing the System Files, not when installing sims later. 4) Only then, if the user insists on putting a (be)spoke in his wheel, should he be steered toward the Folder options window. 5) It follows that any design which employs relative (as opposed to absolute) path addressing enables the user to move his whole installation to another drive or USB stick without having to re-install everything. For example, every time my favourite text editor, EditPad Pro, is upgraded to a new major version, the installer chooses a new directory, e.g., \EdiPadPro6 for v6, \EdiPadPro7 for v7, etc. Last edited: 20/01/2014 at 10:59 by maxand Log in to reply |
| Bespoke locations may be confusing 20/01/2014 at 10:34 #54042 | |
BarryM
2158 posts |
" said:I downloaded the v4 System Files and found they automatically installed themselves into C:\Program Files (x86)\SimSig (running 64-bit Windows 7). Now these new files in the root (\SimSig) directory appeared to be muddled with my old (pre-loader) files. What a great start.The correct start! You accepted the location offered to you by the installer. The installation cannot read your mind! Barry, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Log in to reply |
| Bespoke locations may be confusing 20/01/2014 at 10:55 #54043 | |
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maxand
1637 posts |
You accepted the location offered to you by the installer. The installation cannot read your mind! I guess I'm just used to better designed, more proactive installers that protect innocent users from themselves and try to keep everything clean and separate. An even better example of poor folder tree design is BVE4, for anyone who's played it. See my addenda to my original post. Last edited: 20/01/2014 at 11:04 by maxand Log in to reply |
| Bespoke locations may be confusing 20/01/2014 at 12:06 #54046 | |
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maxand
1637 posts |
Seems I misled you in my original post on three points, sorry about that: 1) Simulations and Timetables folders are not created when System Files are installed, only when the first loader sim is installed. 2) The default directory for installing sims appears to be C:\Users\Public\Documents\SimSig unless one nominates a bespoke folder somewhere else, such as within Program Files. I'm sure there must be some excellent reason for selecting Public Documents; however, to me this is completely unintuitive. 3) After scrubbing everything and starting again, I noticed an annoying tendency by the installer to create yet another subfolder, also named SimSig, within whatever bespoke location I selected. For example, I wanted the folder filepath for, say, the Westbury.sim to be C:\Program Files (x86)\SimSigLdr\Simulations\Westbury. Instead, what I got was C:\Program Files (x86)\SimSigLdr\SimSig\Simulations\Westbury - unless I remembered to edit the path and write a note to myself to remember to do this each and every time thereafter. What a nuisance. Pity the sim installer suffers from amnesia and reverts to C:\Users\Public\Documents\SimSig each time I install a sim! Solution - copy the bespoke path, e.g., C:\Program Files (x86)\SimSigLdr from your file manager, keep it somewhere handy (e.g., a text file), and overwrite the default path each time by pasting it in. Last edited: 20/01/2014 at 12:24 by maxand Log in to reply |
| Bespoke locations may be confusing 20/01/2014 at 12:21 #54047 | |
postal
5190 posts |
" said:Seems I misled you in my original post on three points:Max Presumably the location in (2) is chosen by default to try and avoid any issues with access permissions when using a shared or corporate machine. As far as installing the .sim files in separate folders is concerned, you may be building a "Folder Options" nightmare for yourself. If each .sim goes in a separate folder, you will then have to add a line to the Folder Options box nominating that folder. If you let all of the .sims drop into a Simulations folder, each sim will then create its own subfolder where it will put saved games, splash screens etc. A separate Timetables folder will also be created under the same source folder which holds the Simulations folder, again with subfolders for each sim. You then only need a single entry in the Folder Options box for the source folder which holds the Simulations and Timetables folders. If you are a natural hoarder, the update process using the "Check for Updates" button will also take you out of the comfort zone. When sim files or core code is updated the existing loader.exe or .sim file is/are overwritten. If you keep an archive of previous versions, you need to look at the list of updates the "Check for Updates" button gives you and copy over to your archive the files which will be over-written before you tell the update to proceed. It took me a while to get my head round it all and work out how my new bespoke file structure should look, but most people who just let things happen by default in the installation of the loader and .sims find it all works quite happily; maybe those of us who dig and delve a bit more are really being too clever for our own good! [Edit] PS No matter what, you will still have to have a Simsig folder in your public or shared documents as the licence manager will not work unless it can read a common.cfg file held there and there is no option to bespoke the location of that file. “In life, there is always someone out there, who won’t like you, for whatever reason, don’t let the insecurities in their lives affect yours.” – Rashida Rowe Last edited: 20/01/2014 at 12:26 by postal Log in to reply The following user said thank you: maxand |
| Bespoke locations may be confusing 20/01/2014 at 12:35 #54048 | |
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maxand
1637 posts |
Quote:As far as installing the .sim files in separate folders is concerned, you may be building a "Folder Options" nightmare for yourself.I agree that is always something to avoid, but if you read my last post you will see I now have a "boilerplate" installation filepath for all sims, namely C:\Program Files (x86)\SimSigLdr. That gets around it. As far as updating, I always try to download the update to my hard disk rather than update directly, so that I have the current and at least one previous version in my store. I also backup my existing installation to the hilt (as everything is within Program Files on my system, this is easy to do, in case of a stuffup). Only then do I upgrade via a standard path to which I keep referring. SimSig certainly teaches one to maintain one's own documentation. Log in to reply |
| Bespoke locations may be confusing 20/01/2014 at 13:28 #54050 | |
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Danny252
1461 posts |
Quote:I downloaded the v4 System Files and found they automatically installed themselves into C:\Program Files (x86)\SimSig (running 64-bit Windows 7). Now these new files in the root (\SimSig) directory appeared to be muddled with my old (pre-loader) files. What a great start.Why is this bad? I would expect any update to a program to install to the same location as previous installation - otherwise you risk strange compatibility problems or user confusion from having multiple versions of the same software installed. Quote: After wasting half an hour or so trying to trace the problem, I discovered that one actually needs to tell the loader where to look for simulations if they happen to be in a "bespoke location". Unbelievable, particularly for payware.Slightly odd, but hardly unbelievable. Quote: 1) This major upgrade of SimSig should by default be installed in a completely different folder though with a similar title, e.g., SimSig4Why? You've yet to give a reason, other than "it installs to the old folder", which is hardly an argument at all! Is enabling you to find all Simsig-related files in one location really so terrible? Quote: As far as updating, I always try to download the update to my hard disk rather than update directly, so that I have the current and at least one previous version in my store.You'll be running a few versions behind everyone else then, as some hotfixes come out on the updater first. Again, this is relatively common amongst programs. Log in to reply |
| Bespoke locations may be confusing 20/01/2014 at 21:03 #54070 | |
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Lardybiker
771 posts |
OK....the problem are really two fold... 1) Changes to Windows itself 2) Catering for users who want to set things up differently to the default. Why changes to Windows??? Well, this actually started when Windows Vista was released (and I am sure this has been mentioned a number of times previously). If you install Windows Vista or later from scratch, it has some security features enabled by default that did not exist in Windows XP. One of these features prevents applications from making changes to files that are installed in the "Program Files" folder (for native 64-bit applications) or "Program Files(x86)" folder (for non-64-bit applications) amongst others. Whilst this may be OK for the sims which don't typically change, if you want to edit a timetable, Windows won't allow you to write your changes unless you specifically run SimSig by using the "Run as Administrator" option. Having your user as an administrator is not sufficient. In order to allow for editing timetables, the timetables would need to be put in entirely different location where write access is not restricted. Now, you can, of course, turn this feature off but you have to consider that not everyone has the knowledge to turn such a feature off, some may not realize you can, others may not be able to turn it off or simply do not want to turn it off. SimSig has to cater to everyone though so as a result, the installer has to assume the worst so by default it puts the timetables somewhere where it knows a user can read and write to without any special conditions from the get-go. To keep things neat and tidy, it makes sense to also put the sims in the roughly the same place as well. ....And that's why the sims and timetables are put into "Public Documents/SimSig" by default and unfortunately, this is something we just have to live with, like it or not. That said, the installer could force files into public documents and give users no option of where things should go but in order to cater to users like yourself who'd prefer to do something different there are options for you to move things around. However, there is no way the installer can accommodate everyones individual options so if you do decide to move the install location will mean you'll have to do some manual setup as you've found. The thing is though that your "boilerplate" installation solution may work for you as you have a specific setup and a clear idea of what you want, not everyone has the same settings as you or the knowledge or access to change them to be the same as yours. Some may not give two hoots where the files go as long as the application works (like me for example..its just a file on a disk after all). The installers are made to work without the user requiring any PC knowledge or alter any settings. If you install them just using the default settings, things work great. If you want to change this default behavior then the options are there but you'll need to do some configuring. The information on what you need to do is out there though it may not be obvious or presented in the right way. If you have suggestions on how to make what I shall call a "manual" SimSig installation easier then I have no doubt Geoff will be all ears. Danny252 is right about the downloads though. They do lag behind the versions available through the "update" option in the loader. I suspect that this is because the downloads require the sims have to to be built into an installer and then tested. This takes time and Geoff has a list of other things he has to do as well and as a result, its not a priority to get done straight away. This is hardly unusual though. There are many applications where you get an initial install then do an update so it's not something new. Lastly, the System files. I am not sure why having the new system files in the same place as the older ones makes any difference. I think you'll find the new ones supersede the older ones anyway so why is it a problem? Unfortunately, you don't state why you think having the new files in a different location is necessary, only that it is. Incidentally, when I upgraded, I just loaded the new system files in their default location and I can run both old .EXE sims and new loader sims without any issue. Other software does this so I'm not seeing why it's such a bad thing for SimSig to do it. Log in to reply The following users said thank you: BarryM, JamesN, maxand |
| Bespoke locations may be confusing 21/01/2014 at 00:02 #54072 | |
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maxand
1637 posts |
Thanks Lardybiker - you summed it up well. Not much to add except that when I used the Loader itself to update the sims, it had no problems finding my bespoke location. And yes, many of the updated versions are newer than the ones in the Download section. Personally, I prefer to download each update and install it manually. This gives me more control and knowledge as to where the files are kept, otherwise there's no knowing where they might end up. Your point about needing "Run as Administrator" to gain write access is a good one which I overlooked. Maybe the solution is to select a folder outside Program Files, such as C:\Games\SimSig4, to hold Loader, License Manager, etc. as well as the sims. There are other undesirable features about the present setup. For example, I find a whole slew of Uninstall files dumped in the root directory, distinguished only by a cryptic number instead of by name. Danny252, as I explained earlier, my reasons for wanting to install to a completely different folder are to avoid combining new and old files in the same folder to make it easier to distinguish which are old and which are new, not to mention the possibility of renaming or overwriting the wrong file. Quote: Is enabling you to find all Simsig-related files in one location really so terrible?Not at all, actually desirable, provided they are well compartmented in sub-folders. For this reason I dislike v4 sims being kept in Public Documents while the corresponding loader files are in Program Files. But now that I've finally found a solution which suits me, I'm happy not to rock the boat any further. Each to his/her own. Last edited: 21/01/2014 at 00:05 by maxand Log in to reply The following user said thank you: postal |
| Bespoke locations may be confusing 21/01/2014 at 05:02 #54077 | |
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Muzer
718 posts |
Just to add more to the mix, it is generally not advisable in Windows to store things that the user doesn't want to be directly modifying in the user's Documents directories - Documents is supposed to be for "their stuff". IMHO these would be better placed in ProgramData (a subdirectory of which should be created and the appropriate permissions automatically set on install time) - but then again, if you're expecting users to manually access this directory, this could just create more confusion (isn't it hidden by default or something)? I don't know. It boils down to whether you want sims, etc. to count as "Their stuff" - I would argue that timetables should be (so put these into Public Documents), but sims should not (put these in ProgramData, or even just in Program Files since they'll always be created by privileged installers, unless I'm missing something). Saves should similarly, therefore, go in Documents (actually, isn't there now a dedicated savegame directory in the user's home directory? I haven't used Windows for a while so I'm not entirely up-to-speed). Not saying I particularly mind the current solution personally. I'm just pointing out what various Windows guidelines have said in the past (and, presumably, still say). It'd be cleaner if a split were made between program data - sims - and user data - timetables and saves, in my opinion. Log in to reply The following user said thank you: maxand |
| Bespoke locations may be confusing 21/01/2014 at 16:44 #54078 | |
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Danny252
1461 posts |
" said:Danny252, as I explained earlier, my reasons for wanting to install to a completely different folder are to avoid combining new and old files in the same folder to make it easier to distinguish which are old and which are new, not to mention the possibility of renaming or overwriting the wrong file.Why is there any need to distinguish "new" from "old" (how are you judging that anyway - is loader "new"?)? As mentioned before, any file that is replaced will surely be because of an update that fixes problems or adds new features - there's no real reason to keep running on old system files. Last edited: 21/01/2014 at 16:45 by Danny252 Log in to reply |
| Bespoke locations may be confusing 21/01/2014 at 17:19 #54079 | |
GeoffM
6282 posts 
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Not really much to add to what others have said but note: 1. You're choosing to ignore the default setup so you could therefore expect to do a little legwork to get it set up in the way you want it. It's like taking the instructions for flatpack furniture and either following the instructions (default installation) or deciding to alter the build so suit your own requirements: the manufacturers aren't going to tell you how to modify the construction. I have previously posted basic details about the installation but generally if you start fiddling then you have to suffer the consequences. 2. The move was mostly forced by Windows guidelines - programs in Program Files; shared files in Public Documents. Whether a .sim is a document or program data is somewhat debatable: keeping it with the timetables and other shared files at least keeps everything together. I'm sure I would get just as many howls of protest if the sim data was in a 3rd location. 3. Custom folder locations were provided so users could choose where to look for the sims/timetables etc. You need to specify a "SimSig" folder under which Simulations and Timetables will be used. You can have multiple locations but that is likely to be confusing - we go some way to alleviating that by printing the full folder location in the simulation or timetable description. 4. When you update via the "check for updates" button (which somehow seems to confuse many people :S ) it will print the location of where the files will go; alleviating your worry of what will be installed where. 5. If you select custom folders then how would the installer for subsequent sims know where to install? It's an independent program and it specifically asks where you want to install your files. You just need to read what's on the screen. 6. Logically, if you're updating and want to keep the old files, you would be much better off moving the old files somewhere and then using the standard install location for the new files. Otherwise you risk corrupting the installation by incorrectly installing the files in unexpected places. I really feel you're just making life difficult for yourself and for no apparent reason. SimSig Boss Log in to reply |
| Bespoke locations may be confusing 21/01/2014 at 17:50 #54080 | |
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Forest Pines
525 posts |
If you really do feel it's necessary to archive every version of each sim in case you ever need to return to an older one, there are numerous backup software packages available which you can point at your SimSigffolders to do just that.
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| Bespoke locations may be confusing 21/01/2014 at 19:38 #54083 | |
Dick
386 posts |
Going off at a slight tangent. I'm just curious to know why when the check for updates button is pressed, another dialogue box pops up to click 'Next' to search for updates. Why the extra (and to me, superfluous) step?
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| Bespoke locations may be confusing 21/01/2014 at 20:09 #54086 | |
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GeoffM
6282 posts
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" said:Going off at a slight tangent. I'm just curious to know why when the check for updates button is pressed, another dialogue box pops up to click 'Next' to search for updates. Why the extra (and to me, superfluous) step?It could be streamlined, yes. Just trying to tell people what's happening at each stage! SimSig Boss Log in to reply The following user said thank you: Dick |
| Bespoke locations may be confusing 22/01/2014 at 07:32 #54095 | |
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maxand
1637 posts |
GeoffM wrote: Quote: You need to specify a "SimSig" folder under which Simulations and Timetables will be used.Not necessarily. Here again is my arrangement (Windows Explorer): C:\Program Files (x86)\SimSigLdr - C:\Program Files (x86)\SimSigLdr\Simulations - C:\Program Files (x86)\SimSigLdr\Timetables  Seems to work quite well for me, updating included (Hope you don't change this). Although the installer does its best to add a subfolder named "SimSig" under the bespoke location, it kinda defeats the purpose and adds one more layer of complexity to the folder tree. Last edited: 22/01/2014 at 07:33 by maxand Log in to reply |