Vortex stuck on deploying mods

[AugustaCalidia]

 

but on the other hand if windows says the space is not there well....it's taking double even if it's fictional it still reports it. remeber 99% of people that do not read into what they use will just see go by what windows says and not by the explanations they are given, as you well know some are going to trust windows more then a dev saying the contrary.

 

Actually, what Windows reports depends on what Windows is looking at. At least this is the case for Windows 10.

 

In regard to hardlinks and space utilization, Windows 10 reports differently, depending on whether you are looking at total drive space utilization or at the size of an individual folder containing hardlinks. In the first case, Windows 10 basically ignores hardlinks and reports the same amount of free space whether hardlinks are deployed or not. (Actually there's a small size difference owing to hardlinks, but apparently it's lost in the rounding.) In the second case, Windows 10 reports two things as one - the space utilized by the hardlinks themselves (typically minuscule) together with the files native to the folder and the space utilized by the folders and files to which the hardlinks point. This is where people tend to get confused. In the case of Vortex, they think that Vortex is doubling the size and therefore the space utilization of the Mod Staging Folder, when actually it is not. To verify this, you need only look at total drive space utilization (e.g., drive C) before hardlink deployment and after hardlink deployment. They are virtually the same.

 

Why the difference in Windows 10 reporting? In the case of total drive utilization, it's important to know how much space is actually utilized on your drive. In the case of the reported size of a folder containing hardlinks (and here I'm guessing), you need to know that the hardlinks are there doing the linking job that they are designed to do.

 

These comments obviously do not address OP's issue. However, since the topic of space utilization has come up in this thread, I hope that these comments help people better understand Window 10 file size reporting, hardlinks, and Vortex.