CadetStimpy Posted March 25, 2015 Author Share Posted March 25, 2015 I doubt this is in the correct Forum, but I didn't know which one to pick. Anyway, which directories and/or files should I Back-Up, so I can re-install LaunchBox (e.g., PC rebuild) without having to manually add all my games in again? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 CadetStimpy said I doubt this is in the correct Forum, but I didn't know which one to pick. Anyway, which directories and/or files should I Back-Up, so I can re-install LaunchBox (e.g., PC rebuild) without having to manually add all my games in again? So, its really easy to do. As long as all of the emulators and roms are in the same file structure with the same drive letter (which you can change if you need to, cause a windows reinstall can change around drive letters depending on how many internal and external drives you have... it can get messy). With that, just copy the LaunchBox.xml file that is in the LB directory you installed it to. It is kept with the exe. If you have a premium license too make sure you copy that file that is kept with the exe. Or you can copy the entire folder. Its a portable app. This way DOS settings are also kept. But the roms and emulator paths still need to be the same. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 Basically, if you keep everything (games and emulators included) within your LaunchBox folder, you can copy it/move it anywhere and everything will still just work. Copying the folder is the only thing you have to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CadetStimpy Posted March 26, 2015 Author Share Posted March 26, 2015 Reply to Brad: In the top-level directory I have 2 xml files - LaunchBox and License (I have Premium). In the Metadata sub-directory, I have one large one. In the Backup sub-directory, I have 25 files with names like this: LaunchBox.xml.backup-635628852809969171 So you're saying I only need the LaunchBox.xml and License.xml files (or I can back-up the entire LaunchBox directory)? Reply to Jason: Well, since I have a semi-insane amount of disc space on my system (14Tb), backing-up the entire LaunchBox directory wouldn't be an issue. Perhaps I'll just Back-Up the whole thing (it's about 330Mb at this point), although just Backing-Up those 2 xml files is a space-saver. What do you recommend between these 2 choices? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted March 26, 2015 Share Posted March 26, 2015 CadetStimpy said Reply to Brad: In the top-level directory I have 2 xml files - LaunchBox and License (I have Premium). In the Metadata sub-directory, I have one large one. In the Backup sub-directory, I have 25 files with names like this: LaunchBox.xml.backup-635628852809969171 So you're saying I only need the LaunchBox.xml and License.xml files (or I can back-up the entire LaunchBox directory)? Reply to Jason: Well, since I have a semi-insane amount of disc space on my system (14Tb), backing-up the entire LaunchBox directory wouldn't be an issue. Perhaps I'll just Back-Up the whole thing (it's about 330Mb at this point), although just Backing-Up those 2 xml files is a space-saver. What do you recommend between these 2 choices? I know the feeling. I have a ton of space too. Regardless of space its which ever you want to keep. I have all my roms and emulators on an external drive and LaunchBox on an internal because of the high read write access, but its a separate drive than my OS drive. So when I reinstall Windows 8, which I had to recently, honestly I didn't need to do anything. I just created a new shortcut on my desktop and ran LB like nothing happened. Nothing important is kept outside of your LaunchBox folder except for the roms and emulators, those are where you want them to be. But more or less, yes you only need to keep the LaunchBox XML files or you can just copy the entire folder so you don't have to run the installer again. The backup folder is supposed to have that many XML files. It is in case there is an error that is in the XML file or caused from the XML file you can just rename one of the backups and it replaces the XML with a previous version. Any information written to it since that backup will be lost, but it beats having to start over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Carr Posted March 27, 2015 Share Posted March 27, 2015 Don't forget the images though...they're all stored in the Images folder. If you don't back that up, you won't have any images. I would bet that the majority of the space there is the images, so really there's no reason not to just back up the whole folder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CadetStimpy Posted March 27, 2015 Author Share Posted March 27, 2015 Thanks, guys. Guess I'll just Back-Up the whole thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 Ok I am interested in this thread but not so much for backup but so that I have launchbox on all of my PC's but only having to do the Platforms one time. My set up is running launch box on an internal data drive with a SSD as the system drive all the emulators and Roms are kept on my Windows Home Server 2011 machine so all the paths would be the same no matter what machine I installed them on. So I would just basically copy the folders from my launchbox and copy them on the other PC's then I would have an easy and visual way to launch games every where in the house. I have 4 HTPC's in my house already have Plex and Slingbox enabling them to be insane entertainment portals and now Launch Box is making everything nice and tidy by granting easy access to games also. I have a 24 inch AOI around too that I have be thinking of making into an arcade/emulator machine if I was to do so is there anyway that I could set Launch Box as a service and have it startup when booting the computer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 DOS76 said Ok I am interested in this thread but not so much for backup but so that I have launchbox on all of my PC's but only having to do the Platforms one time. My set up is running launch box on an internal data drive with a SSD as the system drive all the emulators and Roms are kept on my Windows Home Server 2011 machine so all the paths would be the same no matter what machine I installed them on. So I would just basically copy the folders from my launchbox and copy them on the other PC's then I would have an easy and visual way to launch games every where in the house. I have 4 HTPC's in my house already have Plex and Slingbox enabling them to be insane entertainment portals and now Launch Box is making everything nice and tidy by granting easy access to games also. I have a 24 inch AOI around too that I have be thinking of making into an arcade/emulator machine if I was to do so is there anyway that I could set Launch Box as a service and have it startup when booting the computer. Yea this should work. As long as the network protocol you're using on all of them is the same, for example I have Kodi running on my wife's PC and it points to my internal 3TB media drive. Its something like SMB:/BRAD/Video because I didn't share the Drive, I shared the specific folder over the Homegroup. So as long as the protocol you use is the same across all of the HTPC's then you should be good to go. Edit: That said, there is an easy fix I have been mulling around with. I open the XML in Notepad++ which allows some cool things to be done. One is a Replace All command. Ctrl+F then then I change it to look for, for example, C:/ in the XML and replace it with F:/. So if all of the roms were on the C:/ drive and you moved that folder to the F:/ drive, it should work because you're just internally changing the system. So even if what you point to needs to change, if done correctly you still wouldn't need to do the import process all over again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 All emulators and ROMs are located on a network share \\"ServerName"\ Emulators and all PC's have access to them. Resetting the paths is ideal but wouldn't be that much of a hassle anyway as long as the games and all of their metadata are duplicated. The visual aspect is the top priority especially since the usability is there with all of the platform I have tried so far I haven't gotten into anything to complex yet like Playstation 1/2, Sega Saturn or Dreamcast. I have been reading a tutorial on how to configure Virtual Pinball and everyone is using Hyper-Pin as the front-end but I am wary of the Hyper name since Hyper-Spin was impossible for me to configure but I digress I was wondering if you or anyone else knew if I would be able to setup the pinball tables to launch from inside of Launch Box I was thnking that would be pretty cool if so. Oh yeah I forgot to mention thanks for taking time to answer my question its appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 Just found a post that list Virtual Pinball as working with Launch Box Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SentaiBrad Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 DOS76 said All emulators and ROMs are located on a network share \\"ServerName"\ Emulators and all PC's have access to them. Resetting the paths is ideal but wouldn't be that much of a hassle anyway as long as the games and all of their metadata are duplicated. The visual aspect is the top priority especially since the usability is there with all of the platform I have tried so far I haven't gotten into anything to complex yet like Playstation 1/2, Sega Saturn or Dreamcast. I have been reading a tutorial on how to configure Virtual Pinball and everyone is using Hyper-Pin as the front-end but I am wary of the Hyper name since Hyper-Spin was impossible for me to configure but I digress I was wondering if you or anyone else knew if I would be able to setup the pinball tables to launch from inside of Launch Box I was thnking that would be pretty cool if so. Oh yeah I forgot to mention thanks for taking time to answer my question its appreciated. I can also confirm that PS1 and PS2 work just fine, and PS1 is less complicated than you think. It actually runs a bit better than most N64 emulators. Just grab the latest ePSXe version, which was actually really recent. And no problem, I like helping people and trying to figure out LaunchBox more and more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DOS76 Posted March 29, 2015 Share Posted March 29, 2015 I already have both PS versions running just haven't tried to run them through Launch Box Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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