MODS Install Path vs DOWNLOAD Download Path & Vortex custom location

[lister1911]

I finally get my gaming laptop back up and running after its C drive died in January, only to find a brand new mod manager awaits!

 

I've watched Gopher's first few install videos, read the User Interface Overview, and searched these forums, but I can't find anything that explains the difference between Vortex's Mod tab's Install Path and the Download tab's Download Path? Gopher seemed to say that the Mod tab's Install Path is where downloaded mods are stored. If that's the case, what is the purpose of the Download tab's Download Path?

 

Also, I chose to download the custom install location version of Vortex because I wanted to place it on my D drive along with Steam. I've had three gaming laptops over the years and all three lost their C drive at some point. However, even though I now have a Black Tree Gaming Ltd folder on D, with the Vortex subfolder inside, I've found that Vortex also persists at C:\Users\me\AppData\Roaming\Vortex along with quite a few subfolders and files. I would have expected those folders and files to get installed on D as well; can they be moved from Roaming over to the Black Tree Gaming Ltd folder or must they remain?

 

 

Thanks very much!

[Grestorn]

No, Vortex will always put it's own data (not the mods) in the user profile or in c:\program data (if you enable "Multi-user mode"). That's proper behavior for all Windows applications.

 

Applications should never ever write into their own installation directory. Some do, but that's just a very bad practice for many reasons (most security related).

 

In general, if you think that C:\ is less save than any other of your drives (which is really... well, strange), I'd recommend making regular backups of your whole profile. Because THAT's where all the important data is stored, not only of Vortex, but of almost ALL Windows programs, even if you chose to save your documents and pictures elsewhere. It's just the way Windows is wired.

[BigBizkit]

Hi,

 

The download path is where the archives (7z, rar, etc.) mods on the site are packaged as will be downloaded to.

 

The path currently named "Install Path (Game Name)" is Vortex's mod staging area (we will be renaming it to avoid confusion). This path has to point to a folder on the same partition as the game for hardlink deployment to work (default for Bethesda games).

[lister1911]

No, Vortex will always put it's own data (not the mods) in the user profile or in c:\program data (if you enable "Multi-user mode"). That's proper behavior for all Windows applications.

 

Applications should never ever write into their own installation directory. Some do, but that's just a very bad practice for many reasons (most security related).

 

In general, if you think that C:\ is less save than any other of your drives (which is really... well, strange), I'd recommend making regular backups of your whole profile. Because THAT's where all the important data is stored, not only of Vortex, but of almost ALL Windows programs, even if you chose to save your documents and pictures elsewhere. It's just the way Windows is wired.

 

Understood and thanks for the explanation Grestorn. I'm not really sure I agree with the Roaming location but I can see the logic behind it. Anyway, as for C being less safe, in roughly the last 10 years, on 3 different laptops (2 Dell's and my most recent machine, an Aorus), all of them have had C drive failures (and a motherboard failure on the second Dell) with the rest of the drives having no issues. On my current Aorus laptop, C and D were both Samsung SM961's, pretty decent commercial SSDs, and yet C died within the first two months. To Aorus'/Gigabyte's credit, they replaced that SM961 with a Samsung 970 Pro after initially, "accidentally", down grading me to a Toshiba SSD.... I backup my files and docs as best as I can but on the first two machines I had installed Steam and NMM both on C. At least this time I had my games on D. Since my current laptop was basically new before the failure, I hadn't had time to really get any games up and running other than FO4 with just a couple mods. Now that I have it back, I've decided that I might as well update to Vortex!

 

 

 

Hi,

 

The download path is where the archives (7z, rar, etc.) mods on the site are packaged as will be downloaded to.

 

The path currently named "Install Path (Game Name)" is Vortex's mod staging area (we will be renaming it to avoid confusion). This path has to point to a folder on the same partition as the game for hardlink deployment to work (default for Bethesda games).

 

Ah, that's what didn't make sense BigBizkit so thanks for the explanation! Right now I have two folders on D for these, the download path is D:\Game Tools\Vortex\Downloads\fallout4 with the install path being, D:\Game Tools\Vortex\Fallout4. I'd much rather name the install path correctly, if only to keep it straight in my head and match what's coming; can you reveal what you guys intend to rename the "Install Path" to? If so, I'll update my path to D:\Game Tools\Vortex\NEW NAME\Fallout4!

 

 

Thanks again, very much guys!

[BigBizkit]

Glad to help :thumbsup: Right now we are planning to rename "Install Path" to "Mod Staging Folder (Game Name)" as we feel this is a more accurate description of what it is and to avoid confusion.

[lister1911]

Glad to help :thumbsup: Right now we are planning to rename "Install Path" to "Mod Staging Folder (Game Name)" as we feel this is a more accurate description of what it is and to avoid confusion.

 

Perfect, thanks again BigBizkit!