Installing/Adding PC Windows Games easily

[PixelBlitterBoy]

Afternoon fellow LB's As the title suggests I trying to add my collection of windows games to LB. Is they an easy import option I am missing or do I have to create a new platform manually (PC) and add the games individually? I've tried the import 'Windows Games', but it comes back with nothing to import...also noticed it doesn't seem to ask what drive/folder to look in for the scan. Finally I don't have a steam account to reference either. Any help/advice would be appreciated. Cheers Chris.

[SentaiBrad]

The LaunchBox importer looks in default install locations for Windows games, most games when installed leave exe's in a C drive location for reference and backup, this is generally where LaunchBox looks. I would normally tell you to run a ROM Import with add files, but a Bulk Edit option to remove emulator doesn't exist but we'll get that in a future update. Since the importer isn't finding your games though we'll do a modified version of this. Navigate in Explorer to your root games folder, so say D:\Games where all of your PC games are installed. In the top right in windows is the Windows Search function. Type in "*.exe" to find every exe in that folder and every root folder. Let the scan finish and once it is done use Ctrl + A to highlight them all, then drag and drop the exe's in to LaunchBox. My personal preference is to use the Rom Importer, Add files, the search then bulk edit the use of emulator off later, but since that isn't there this is the easiest way to add games. If the search finds excess exe's you'll have to delete them before the import process starts (there should be a list view of all the games and paths LB will import) or just delete them afterward. The full file path is in the game details pane now so if several entries have the same name you should be able to know easily which is which.

[Lordmonkus]

What would be nice is if we could keep shortcut files to all our games in a single folder and then to import them just drag them all in like rom files. For me this would be the best way since I don't have that many games on Steam and I do not install any games to C drive at all. My games are kept on 2 separate drives, SSD for games with load times like BF4 and MMOs and a normal drive for non load time critical games.

[PixelBlitterBoy]

Thanks for the replies guy's appreciate the feedback. In the interim I've just started adding the games individually/manually after I created the 'PC' platform. This way I can sort out the game fields separately....I was just being a lazy arse yesterday! Thanks again C.

[SentaiBrad]

lordmonkus said What would be nice is if we could keep shortcut files to all our games in a single folder and then to import them just drag them all in like rom files. For me this would be the best way since I don't have that many games on Steam and I do not install any games to C drive at all. My games are kept on 2 separate drives, SSD for games with load times like BF4 and MMOs and a normal drive for non load time critical games.

This should technically work the same way I pointed out above, I just assumed not every game had a shortcut, but you could certainly import them that way.

[SentaiBrad]

ccorkin said Thanks for the replies guy's appreciate the feedback. In the interim I've just started adding the games individually/manually after I created the 'PC' platform. This way I can sort out the game fields separately....I was just being a lazy arse yesterday! Thanks again C.

No problem! Jason and I know not every tool is perfect and nothing is sacred when it comes to get enhancements it's just more of a question when to do them. If you want to vote on which features to implement first or add feature requests that don't exist, click the Send Feedback button at the top of the website.

[Lordmonkus]

Hmm, maybe I did something wrong but when I tried to just drag the shortcut file in to import it didn't work for me. I had to import each game by clicking Game then Add and point to the .exe file. This was on my laptop which doesn;t have many PC games so it wasn't a big deal but no way hell I would wanna do it that way on my main gaming PC.

[SentaiBrad]

Dragging a rom, an exe or any file on to your LaunchBox library doesn't bring up an import window?

[DOS76]

In my experience any file you drag in will start the process. The only time I had an issue is when I had checked the run as admin box in properties (don't remember why I even checked it) then drag and drop didn't work at all after unchecking it everything was back to normal

[Lordmonkus]

The process starts and you either pick either Rom or MS-Dos game. If you pick rom you end up having to choose the emulator which since it's a Windows game there is no emulator so that's a road block. If you pick MS-Dos game it thinks it's a DosBox game so that ends in an apparent road block. I may be getting hung up on something simple but it doesn't feel too intuitive compared to importing a Steam library or scanning a default location.

[SentaiBrad]

It should be, but you're right it's not. Actually it coming up with MS-DOS is a good thing. Choose MS-DOS and bulk import that out. Using an Emulator isn't a bulk edit option but using MS-DOS is. Granted, that is still a work around but it should work none-the-less.

[DOS76]

You could always just choose any random emulator and then edit the game afterwards

[SentaiBrad]

DOS76 said You could always just choose any random emulator and then edit the game afterwards

Right, but that is 1 by 1 and I forgot it would be the same from drag and drop. I originally was writing in my first reply about the add files function but changed it to drag and drop because I forgot that it still required MS-DOS or Emulator. Use MS-DOS is in the Bulk Edit wizard and Use Emulator isn't, so it's an extra (stupid) step, but it means you don't have to do them 1 by 1.

[DOS76]

I'm just glad LB found my games even though the are on a data drive in a folder named PC games the few it didn't find it wasn't much of a hassle to add manually.

[funtasticguy]

Has anything changed since March in terms of a feature to add non-Steam Windows games in a fast and easy way? Or do we continue to follow the suggestions listed above? If no solution has been implemented, a suggestion would be to do what Rom Browser (an add-on within Kodi) currently does. Rom Browser solves this by looking for a folder full of shortcuts pointing to all the games. The shortcuts had to be named precisely to the actual titles of the games so that it could look them up in the database and download the metadata. This method works quite well and it might be a solution that can be implemented in the future within LB (which is a piece of software that I have really enjoyed since it works so well and is easy to use). Thanks!

[SentaiBrad]

That's already what our function does, it just needs refinement. Import -> Windows Games has existed though for a long time, you might just get some extra programs in there. You can delete them from the list before you hit finish for the import too.

[mr 2fngrz]

The problem that I am having is that when I manually add some games after doing a database search (ie, LB, Wiki, etc) it won't add the games. I've pointed to where the exes are located, but it just wont add them. Is there another way to fix this issue?

[SentaiBrad]

The only time LaunchBox refuses to import a game entry is if you already have that game entry in LaunchBox (generally based on the file name and the locations), so do you have duplicates in LaunchBox of the game you are trying to add? You can also use the Add button in the bottom right hand corner, but this is a 1 by 1 process.

[Ell Aeon]

I would like to see the following feature (if it is not already existing):

 

Scan a direction containing folders and/or image files for PC game names, independent from installation status/installation type.

 

It should search for standardized PC game names, similar to what launchbox already does with (zipped) roms.

The Kodi name standard for movies using the IMDB naming is a good method in this case imho. GameFAQs could be a good source maybe.

Example: a name like "BlackWhite2byWhoever.iso" would be harder to identify automatically but "Black and White" folder maybe together with (year/language/version/etc/*) should be easy to automatically create the list and meta files for larger pc game collections.

By then I will buy my lifetime membership at the latest. after having one for Emomovies, Hyperspin and GameEx. But Your project seems very ideal.

[Lordmonkus]

Not sure if this is a response you are looking for but what I do is have shortcut files to all my Windows games in a folder and this acts like a roms folder. I then drag those shortcut files in to Launchbox like any other roms for any other emulator. Then in the import process it will ask for an emulator just pick any emulator from your list, it doesn't matter which because it will get changed after, also pick the Windows platform.

Once your games are imported and scraped (which should go smoothly assuming your shortcut files are properly named) then select all the games, right click and pick edit. This will bring up the bulk edit wizard where you change the emulator for these games to none.

Now you have all your Windows games imported into Launchbox and they all have their metadata and images and load like any other shortcut file.