Moving roms and how to rename the rom paths for each game.

[falcon]

Is there an easy way to rename the path name of each game with out having to do each one, one at a time? Thanks Falcon

[SentaiBrad]

Yes, but it depends on what you changed? Did you just change drives? For example from D:/ to F:/? Or was it the folder they're all inside of? So "D:/Emulators/_____" to "D:/Games/_____"? As long as it's simple you can edit your LaunchBox.xml with Notepad++ to achieve the change. Close out LaunchBox and backup your xml file, then open it with Notepad++ and use Ctrl + F, then find and replace. If you are just changing a path for a single system, the folder that all of your other sub folders are held in or your drive letter it can be changed this way. I've done this several times. This only works though if you aren't changing each folder the roms and emulators are held in. If all of your games are held within your LaunchBox folder (you chose to have have LaunchBox move them), then you can just move LaunchBox as it's portable. If you want to go from Relative paths (letting LB move the roms) to them being outside of the LaunchBox folder then you'd have to re-import. It's worth noting that even my above method for using Notepad++ is more powerful, but you can also delete your games and re-import them without downloading any media and they'll all import really fast and all of the media will still be associated to each game as long as the names aren't changing.

[falcon]

It is a different drive and folder. You said re-import do you mean just import like they are new roms or is there a re-import option? Thanks Falcon

[SentaiBrad]

If you just delete the roms in your library and then import them like you did before (NES, then SNES etc) and run the import process again, but this time uncheck all of the boxes for media it will just import without downloading then use what you already downloaded for media. This can still easily be done via Notepad++. What was the old path and what is the new path? I just need the path up to the root folder holding all of your system folders and I can tell you easily how to do this. The Notepad++ would be faster than re-importing everything.

[falcon]

old path C:\LaunchBox\Games\Arcade new Z:\Roms oms Thanks

[SentaiBrad]

Ohhh, you're using the Relative pathing option. If you look in your rom paths when you edit a game, you'll see "..\..\Games\Arcade\". It's still doable. You essentially use Notepad++ to Find "..\..\Games" and replace it with "Z:\Roms". You'll need to check your XML for the exact paths it's using, but that is the gist of it.

[falcon]

Thanks all set worked great. Falcon

[SentaiBrad]

Sweet! No problem. If you have more questions feel free to ask.

[edugr10]

Hello. Sorry to bump this, I'm a recent Big Box user (Thank you BF!) and very happy with it. Recently I've found myself needing to move some files to another directory to free some space and the most convenient files to achieve that goal would be my roms.

I've read Brad's explanation but I'm a total noob on this stuff so I need more details on how to edit the ini files. What and where exactly is the path name I need to change?

My roms are currently not in the LaunchBox folder, they are in C:\Prime\E\Emuladores\XXXXX (this last one is the platform name, there are like 20 different ones)

Can I move over the exact same folder structure into my new HDD (D:) and only edit the D letter and the platform names? Something like D:\Prime\E\Emuladores\XXXXX\. But I need to know exactly where and what to edit because the ini file is huge and full of paths and I don't quite understand what each of them mean.

Thank you in advance!

[SentaiBrad]

Yes, you can do exactly that. You'll need Notepad++, and you'll go in to your LaunchBox/Data folder and open the XML files for each of your platforms in Notepad++. You'll press Ctrl + F to bring up the find menu option then you'll select find and replace. You'll want to find 'C:\' and replace it 'D:\'. If LaunchBox is using Relative paths (which look like "../", you'll find that and replace it with D instead. LB will use relative paths if the stuff it's using is on the same hard drive, so if LaunchBox and your games are on the same drive, I would say just to move them both. Since it's not using a hard drive letter, it doesn't matter if it's on C or D. You can also move them, remove the games from LaunchBox and re-import them while not downloading any media, but this will reset play count, favorites etc. So you have 3 choices you can make. The Notepad++ method is the easiest I think. Even if LB is using relative paths you can change it to the absolute path and you should be good to go. You'll need to close down LB before you edit them, make backups of all your XML's first, and you'll need to do this for each System XML. Someone was telling me that they opened up all the XML's in Notepad++ at once and they were able to use the find and replace all function for all opened documents. I know Notepad++ uses tabs, but I've never actually used replace all on multiple docs at once, so I am unsure where it is.