How to move Games collection to network drive

[ed20910]

First off, I want to say thank you for this awesome piece of software!  So much easier to set up than HS.  I have read a number of posts about moving games dir to another pc but all seem to mention the Launchbox.xml file which I do not have since I am running the most recent beta.  If I understand correctly, that has been replaced with individual platform files in the Data folder.  Currently my games are in C:/Launchbox/Games along with my Emulators and media that has been scrapped.  I would like to move them to my main pc that houses all of my movie/tv content and allow access to the Games library via the network.  I am unsure what portion of the .xml file to edit or what to change it to.  Would it be better to map a network drive to each pc and utilize the same letter of the drive? (z:/Games for example)?

I think this is the line in the Arcade.xml i should be editing but not 100%, and if it is, not sure what it should be changed to.

<LaunchBox>
  <Game>
    <ApplicationPath>Games\Arcade\xmen.zip</ApplicationPath>

 

Thanks

 

[DOS76]

Your best bet it to use the find and replace function in NotePad++ from the menu find is under search I believe, once open you type in the path you originally had and run a count to make sure it finds them if the count is not zero you typed in the right path from there click the replace tab and type in the new path so if your previous path is C:\LaunchBox\Games your new path can be z:\Launchbox\Games or even Z:\Games if you don't want to move the LB folder. You can use a network drive or even a network share (as I do) and then the structure would be \\NetworkPC\Games
(\\WHS2011\Emulators\"PlatformName" in my case)

Edited May 15, 2017 by DOS76

[ed20910]

THanks for the quick reply.  Ok, so in each platform i need to basically do the "find/replace all" for all instances in each platform "Games\Arcade\'rom name'" So potentially if i did each one individually, it could be hundreds of changes depending on the number of roms?  I have to update every instance in each .xml, or potentially that rom will come back as "cant be located" when it is attempted to be played.   The last thing I want to do is have to go back and find some game images/names again manually for the network pc.  It took a while to get the correct images.  If i understand right, I CAN have launchbox on my network pc but its not recommended to have the videos on the local pc, correct?

[SentaiBrad]

If you use the find and replace all function, replacing the path up until the rom name, with a new complete path, it should work. I've done this many times with more simple replacements (like E:\ to S:\, or D:\Emulator to D:\Emulators). You can also edit multipl XML's at once if the paths you're changing are all the same. It depends on how much you keep the same. You only need to find and replace the portions that are changing. So, if you're moving the "Emulators" folder from your drive, to your network, you only need to change everything before the "Emulators" folder. If that's the same across every XML, you can use the Find and Replace All, In every open document option.

[ed20910]

Still a little confused by i think i got it.  Currently my games are in C:/LaunchBox/Games, i want to move them to my network drive.  I have mapped the network drive folder as Drive L: on my pc where the games currently reside.  When i use the replace in notepad ++, i would open up a platform.xml file and search for the current path which is "Games\platform name", I will only need to search for the keyword "Games" and replace that with the new path of L:\Games? So find Games  replace L:\, or do i need to replace with L:\Games?  I plan on keeping the shared drive folder structure as it currently resides on my C: drive but just with the shared drive letter.  Does this sound right?  Worse case, i can back up a platform and test it.

 

[DOS76]

Yeah I would do find Games replace L:\Games

Edited May 15, 2017 by DOS76

[DOS76]

Make sure LB is closed when you do this and then save all the changes it would be smart to make a back up of your data folder 1st

[ckp]

On 5/15/2017 at 3:04 PM, DOS76 said:

Yeah I would do find Games replace L:\Games

Just to be safer, I would do a find on Games\ and replace with L:Games\

[ed20910]

Thanks for the replies.  Finally got to test out.  Using Find=Games and Replace L:\Games for the mapped drive, worked perfectly.  Opening all the platform xml files in Notepad ++ and using the "replace all in open documents" worked.  For some reason one platform didn't get updated even though it met the criteria. Can't complain though, it beat doing each one individually.  To confirm, the videos from a network location (at least for me) have a decent amount of lag in Big Box.  When i scroll and stop at a new game, the game either one up or down (depending on scroll direction) from the original starting spot plays for about 2-3 seconds before the correct video plays.  Guess i will have to leave those locally for each pc.  The games were the biggest space eater and thank you for the assistance.  GREAT COMMUNITY!!! 

 

I did want to add one note.  Using the above search and replace all did rename a few games that had "Games" in the title. Example:  '88 Games was renamed to '88 L:\Games.  In retrospect, using <ApplicationPath>Games as the find, probably would be better.

Edited May 24, 2017 by ed20910
add note for renaming