Migrating DAZ over to new machine
Geminii23
Posts: 1,328
So my new system is arriving this week. I am finally setting up a Windows box specifically for DAZ and will be wanting to migrate everything from my Mac. Does anyone have any tips or useful info on what is the best way to do this?
I was planning on doing clean install and downloading everything through DazCentral since I will now be on Windows. But I do have some questions regarding all my third party content and I even have some custom stuff that I'm not sure how to bring in. For instance I had somehow created a whole section of character pre-sets and was able to get them setup in the Smart Content panel. For the life of me I can't remember how I did this since it has been so long. It started with kitbashing and editing the textures in photoshop and then I had done something with creating Scene Subsets, Sets and Actors.
Oh boy this is going to be fun.
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Comments
Make sure you have Daz Connect turned off. I am cleaning up a mess on both of my systems that has grown over the past years since I migrated from my iMac to Windows.
And if you have a limit on your gigs on the internet, consider how much you need for other purposes and download by DIM those products you use the most or are the essential products for Daz. Then portion out the rest over the next few months.
Another consideration is the number of characters and morphs per generation/sex you have. Were they clogging up you loading times already? Decide which ones you want to load and leave the rest in DIM.
To an extent, you can just copy data directories over and point Daz at them, but I don't know if Windows will have issues looking at Mac files. (I haven't tried this in a while.)
Clean install is good in theory, but when you have terrabytes to transfer, it's sometimes better just to copy over the old.
If you kept your download directory then you will save a lot of time. In case you don't, see if you can download before your new system arrives.
My content currently is installed on an External drive. I originally used DIM to install everything and used RendoInstall for third party stuff.
It sounds like theoretically once I have DAZ installed on Windows, I could possibly copy my entire DAZ3D directory from this hard drive to another Windows format one and then just map the directories. Yes? No?
I don't think you have to even move the content, just point the DIM and Daz programs to that path so they can see it (assuming you are going to keep the hard drive connected).
The content might be there. But i don't think so for the "Smart" part. That i think goes with the database and as you are moving from mac to windows (and some products are different for each) direct backup/restore may have issues.
You only need to point Daz at your library (or libraries), and then your system needs to be able to read the library.
It doesn't matter how the files from your library got onto your system... Rendo, DIM, Connect, etc. Or plugging an already populated Daz library into a new computer. Daz Studio doesn't care.
Daz only needs to know where your content is. It doesn't care how it got there. Even the metadata is in your library, not in DIM.
(A clean install is not required, and might actually take more time.)
I don't know what the options are for Mac OS to Windows filesystem are, however. I would guess that Windows isn't particularly friendly with Mac OS files.
If your smart content doesn't show for whatever reason, you can just reimport the metadata.
So I can't use this drive per say because it is formatted for Mac OS and would require some third party software to read it in Windows. If I understand the process correctly, it seems like i would simply be able to install Daz for Windows, then copy this entire directory to a new Windows formatted drive and remap it in Daz. And if things aren't showing up then re-import all metadata.
If you have personalised your workspace layout I think there is a way to save that too. I forgot to do that a few weeks ago when I got a new HD and it took hours to get it back to the way it was before.
It is a different system hence I will recommend fresh install either from backed up zips or using install manager if settings of Content Directory Manager and Install Manager fail to use specified directory.
~ just because _ it ain't One of these that Mac And Wins can read ??
To my understanding the only filesystem that both Mac and Wins can read in common is FAT32 (possibly exFat) but it's a depricated system as far as I know. I can't remember the specific size, but FAT can't read or write above like 4Gb files I think. Since I do a lot of video work, I've never formatted my drives as anything other than HFS for Mac.
~ And this Explaines about these , although Not HFS for Mac _ still worth reading _
What’s the Difference Between FAT32, exFAT, and NTFS?
https://www.howtogeek.com/235596/whats-the-difference-between-fat32-exfat-and-ntfs/
Thanx ~