First run in shared mode?

[cydonianknight21]

Hi all, I've been working on a little project to make vortex portable. I plan to share it with everyone when its done. I've got it mostly done but I'd like to elimate a step.

 

Is there a way I can force vortex to boot in shared mode (creating the data in c:\ProgramData\Vortex instead of under the windows user profile) without opening the program, changing the setting under vortex settings, and then rebooting the program?

 

I am trying to avoid vortex automatically creating a redundant set of data files at c:\users\[username]\AppData. The way the portable convert is implimented right now is functional but those files are unnecessary bloat that would never be used by the portable version.

 

If i can get this done and write it up for you guys, this will also make transferring your existing modlist to a new computer a lot less painless. The current suggested method is to start the list from scratch but I have discovered it doesn't have to be this way. Thanks for your help

[rmm200]

Good luck with this. Your goal of transferring modlists "a lot less painless" is quite likely to succeed.

[cydonianknight21]

Thanks. Ive done it already, transferred my entire vortex install with modlist exactly as I had it from my gaming pc to my laptop, as a test. I still need to impliment the uninstall key being written into the registry but I know how to do that.

 

The thing is, to do this you need vortex to be in shared mode so that the directory doesnt include your unique windows profile username. I could write up how I did it and let you guys just deal with having the extra files from vortex's default profile mode if all else fails.

 

Its pretty terrifying when you are setting it up though, theres several moments during the process where it seems like youve lost your modlist entirely. Until youve successfully pointed vortex to the files. But at least this method doesnt involve vortex freaking out and losing the metadata on the mods, or saying the mods were changed outside of vortex. When you're finished with my method and you open vortex it looks exactly the same as it did on the old pc. Enabled/disabled and mod rules included.

[rmm200]

Make sure your Mods are "Purged" before making your backup.

You want a "Deploy" required when taking to a new computer. Messing around with hard links - will not work.

[cydonianknight21]

I just want to know how to boot the program into shared mode without having to open it and change the settings the first time

[Zanderat]

Sounds interesting. But I am curious as to what this means:

 

creating a redundant set of data files at c:\users\[username]\AppData

Are you saying that the staging folder is not necessary?

[showler]

Staging folder can be set up later. For a portable instance they are trying to avoid having Vortex create configuration data in a specific users appdata folder.

[cydonianknight21]

The staging folder is set to C:\ProgramData\Vortex. This is to avoid the unique directory that comes with having the staging folder under your username. Vortex has a setting which lets you set a staging folder at this location (the setting is called shared mode) so that you can share your vortex instance across different windows profiles on the same machine, but if you set up your vortex install a certain way on a secondary drive you can take advantage of that setting to move it all rather painlessly to another machine.

As it stands, it worked in my test instance but when I first opened vortex on the second machine it built a new (unnecessary) staging folder under the user profile. When I set it back to shared mode and rebooted the program, it found everything as intended and was like opening exactly the same vortex as on the first pc.

I could let it create that extra instance of a staging folder and just write an extra step into the procedure (open vortex, change to shared mode, reboot) but it leaves those files there untouched which is a bit messy so I'd rather be clean if I'm sharing this method with people. Thats all