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Any advice for a Daz Studio Uninstall / Reinstall?

mmitchell_houstonmmitchell_houston Posts: 2,490
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

I am upgrading my laptop today (replacing a 256 GB SSD with a new 2 TB SSD. 

CURRENT CONFIGURATION of my Alienware R2 17 laptop:

  • C Drive: 256 GB SSD is the boot drive with Win 10 (there are almost no apps installed on this drive).
  • D Drive: Daz Studio and My Content Library (along with almost all of my other apps) are installed on a 1 TB hard drive (7200 rpm).

NEW CONFIGURATION & ACTIONS:
- I am cloning the old SSD boot drive to the new SSD, then using software tools to increase the size of the partition (I've done this before on other systems without issue – in fact, Acronis software makes it downright easy!).
- I will then remove the old (small) SSD.
- I will then uninstall Daz Studio from the D drive.
- And then install a fresh copy of Daz Studio onto the new SSD C drive.

Now, I do not want to have to redownload all my content (6,000+ items!). I would just like to move the content libary to the new SSD drive.
If I've read correctly, I should be able to copy the content over and then use the DS interface to point to the content library.

Is this correct? Is there anything else that I need to be mindful of in this scenario?


Thanks in advance for any tips or advice!

 

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 102,718

    The only thing that uses absolute paths is Install Manager, in its manifest files. In DIM you can tell it to use the current directory rather than the installation directory for updates, in the Installation tab of the Settings dialogue (gear icon at top-right of the main window).

    Everything else uses relative paths and will be unaffected by your chnaging the location of the content directories.

  • mmitchell_houstonmmitchell_houston Posts: 2,490

    UPDATE: 

    EDIT TO ORIGINAL POST: I should have said AOMIE Backupper Pro and AOMIE Partition Assistant as the software I used to clone my old C drive over to the new one and then resize it. From start to finish ON JUST THE HARDWARE INSTALL AND THE OS CLONE it took me 45 minutes to finish everything.

    Next up, time to install a fresh version of Poser Pro 11 and Daz Studio 4.x.

  • mmitchell_houstonmmitchell_houston Posts: 2,490
    Richard Haseltine said:

    The only thing that uses absolute paths is Install Manager, in its manifest files. In DIM you can tell it to use the current directory rather than the installation directory for updates, in the Installation tab of the Settings dialogue (gear icon at top-right of the main window).

    Everything else uses relative paths and will be unaffected by your chnaging the location of the content directories.

    I'm not quite clear on what you mean. I kind of understand about the manifest files and how I can use the DIM to point to where it installs the content.

    But I do not want to keep my current directory. I want to move it to the new SSD drive. In other words, move it from the D drive to the C drive.

    Is this feasible or easy to do?

  • PadonePadone Posts: 3,796
    edited June 2019
    mmitchell_houston said:

    I'm not quite clear on what you mean.

    I only use manual install so don't take my word for it. But I fear what it does mean is that by default DIM uses absolute paths. So if you used DIM to install your assets then no, you can't move the content folder around. If this is the case then your only option is to make a D partition and move your assets there, so you don't change the absolute paths.

    Then mine is just a guess. A confirmation from Richard or anyone who deals with DIM would be required.

     

    EDIT. It seems I'm right but there are workarounds .. In my opinion the information from Richard in the discussion below should be better placed in the daz documentation, to make it more visible since this is important information for everyone that has to move the content to a new pc. Leaving it "hidden" in a discussion is odd.

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/324011/daz-content-reinstall

    Post edited by Padone on
  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 102,718
    mmitchell_houston said:
    Richard Haseltine said:

    The only thing that uses absolute paths is Install Manager, in its manifest files. In DIM you can tell it to use the current directory rather than the installation directory for updates, in the Installation tab of the Settings dialogue (gear icon at top-right of the main window).

    Everything else uses relative paths and will be unaffected by your chnaging the location of the content directories.

    I'm not quite clear on what you mean. I kind of understand about the manifest files and how I can use the DIM to point to where it installs the content.

    But I do not want to keep my current directory. I want to move it to the new SSD drive. In other words, move it from the D drive to the C drive.

    Is this feasible or easy to do?

    The current directory for updates means use the directory DIM is isntalling to, not the one the old files are listed as having been installed to. If you kept the zips you can select everything in the installed tab, right-click, and choose the option to reinstall all selected which will update the stored paths for the content

  • jestmartjestmart Posts: 4,449

    The manifest files that DIM creates when it installs a product uses absolute paths, to fix the path you need Notepad++ or similar program that can do a batch find and replace.

  • Umi no Senshi no IshiUmi no Senshi no Ishi Posts: 330
    edited June 2019

    I'm doing something similar now (or more accurately, my computer is), I built a new PC and following Richard's advice did a fresh install of Daz and associated applications (Hexagon, Carrera, etc).

    I'm doing similar to you (different software though 'Easetodo') moving content. 

    I connected old machine to new PC via my network and the software is creating an image file and moving it to the new drive.

    I set up my content path exactly the same as from the old PC to the new. (But I don't think changing it would make a difference)When I checked it this morning as I was leaving for work, it had 12 hours to go to finish moving 1.5TB of data.

    Since I use default locations, I'm hoping setting up the relative paths for content on the new machine should be straightforward. 

    Post edited by Umi no Senshi no Ishi on
  • mmitchell_houstonmmitchell_houston Posts: 2,490
    jestmart said:

    The manifest files that DIM creates when it installs a product uses absolute paths, to fix the path you need Notepad++ or similar program that can do a batch find and replace.

    I have Notepad ++ and didn't know it did batch search/replace. That is VERY good news. Thanks for the tip.

  • mmitchell_houstonmmitchell_houston Posts: 2,490
    edited June 2019
    Umi no Senshi no Ishi said:

    I'm doing something similar now (or more accurately, my computer is), I built a new PC and following Richard's advice did a fresh install of Daz and associated applications (Hexagon, Carrera, etc).

    I'm doing similar to you (different software though 'Easetodo') moving content. 

    I connected old machine to new PC via my network and the software is creating an image file and moving it to the new drive.

    I set up my content path exactly the same as from the old PC to the new. (But I don't think changing it would make a difference). When I checked it this morning as I was leaving for work, it had 12 hours to go to finish moving 1.5TB of data.

    Since I use default locations, I'm hoping setting up the relative paths for content on the new machine should be straightforward. 

    I'm also going to do a fresh installation of Daz Studio, Carrera and Hexagon. I want to put them all on my new, speedy SSD C Drive. And I want to move the content to the new drive, as well. I'm hoping I can figure out how to edit the manifest files with Notepad ++. Otherwise, I will just head out for the weekend and set everything to download again. Which (sigh) I might do, anyway.

    BTW, you've got a lot of content to move! I have been keeping my work files on a NAS server so I only have content to move, not actual projects and files.

    Post edited by mmitchell_houston on
  • mmitchell_houstonmmitchell_houston Posts: 2,490
    Padone said:
    mmitchell_houston said:

    I'm not quite clear on what you mean.

    I only use manual install so don't take my word for it. But I fear what it does mean is that by default DIM uses absolute paths. So if you used DIM to install your assets then no, you can't move the content folder around. If this is the case then your only option is to make a D partition and move your assets there, so you don't change the absolute paths.

    Then mine is just a guess. A confirmation from Richard or anyone who deals with DIM would be required.

     

    EDIT. It seems I'm right but there are workarounds .. In my opinion the information from Richard in the discussion below should be better placed in the daz documentation, to make it more visible since this is important information for everyone that has to move the content to a new pc. Leaving it "hidden" in a discussion is odd.

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/324011/daz-content-reinstall

    Honestly, I never thought of that. I probably won't do it, as that sort of defeats the purpose of having a larger drive. I don't want to bump up against any artificial limits like partition sizes. However... I had been considering getting a second SSD drive (I've got two slots). If I set that one up as my D that would solve some problems.

    jestmart said:

    The manifest files that DIM creates when it installs a product uses absolute paths, to fix the path you need Notepad++ or similar program that can do a batch find and replace.

    Right now I'm going to look at both options:

    1. Editing the manifest files with Notepad++
    2. Getting a second SSD drive and setting it up for my content (I'm leaning toward this, as I could move ALL my programs that way, including MS Office, Photoshop, etc.)

     

  • Umi no Senshi no IshiUmi no Senshi no Ishi Posts: 330

    Ahh, I think I follow now. You need to change the manifest files because the path is changed? 

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/212526/rebuilding-dim-manifest-from-installation-files-possible

    (seems to recomend the notepad++ method. Been a while but search/replace if it's just the drive letter would make it pretty easy?)

    Last comment by Barbult: 

    Edit to add: This comment addresses the issue of not being able to uninstall with DIM after moving content to a different drive letter.

    It is easy to edit the manifest files all at once with a tool like Notepad++ and change the drive letter. I did that just recently, because I moved content to a different drive with a different Windows mapped letter. After editing the manifest files, I was able to uninstall content just fine with DIM. Only attempt this if you are comfortable with editing the files manually. You might want to keep a backup copy first, just in case.

     

  • mmitchell_houstonmmitchell_houston Posts: 2,490
    Umi no Senshi no Ishi said:

    Ahh, I think I follow now. You need to change the manifest files because the path is changed? 

    https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/212526/rebuilding-dim-manifest-from-installation-files-possible

    (seems to recomend the notepad++ method. Been a while but search/replace if it's just the drive letter would make it pretty easy?)

    Last comment by Barbult: 

    Edit to add: This comment addresses the issue of not being able to uninstall with DIM after moving content to a different drive letter.

    It is easy to edit the manifest files all at once with a tool like Notepad++ and change the drive letter. I did that just recently, because I moved content to a different drive with a different Windows mapped letter. After editing the manifest files, I was able to uninstall content just fine with DIM. Only attempt this if you are comfortable with editing the files manually. You might want to keep a backup copy first, just in case.

    Oh yes, I will deffinitely keep a backup if I go that way! No doubt about it.

    However, I am leaning more and more toward just getting a second SSD. I've talked to my tech buddies and we've been discussing the bus speeds between the MS drives, and I think there would be negligible issues and speed hits by keeping all my stuff on a second M2 SSD. Especially since another 2 TB SSD is only $220. 

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