The design decision of using the My Documents folder

[leilei]

Why?
This is particularily a huge issue when you've got a windows partition that's less than 8gb (for easy format, reinstall and recovery). Why should I install UT3 mods and develop in my Windows partition instead of the game partition (where loads of space is to be had there)? I don't get it. Also, more than one person uses this so maybe I dont' want to redundantly extract some 400mb map pack to both documents folders to eat up a total of 800mb or more? Why epic why?

Yes I know it can be solved by moving the folder's path, but what I want to discuss is the reasoning behind this design decision.

This is my only real complaint of UT3.

 

[T2A`]

AFAIK, it's a (supremely annoying and pointless) M$ standard procedure for reasons unknown. Epic just blindly followed the standard. D:

 

[Sir_Brizz]

I prefer it. I've reinstalled UT3 through a dozen or so Windows reinstalls and have not lost any of my custom content, mods, or code that I am working on.

I used to have tiny windows partitions and all that, but with hard drive sizes going up and os reinstalls going down, there isn't much of a compelling reason to do that anymore. I just do a single large partition myself.

Anyway, as I was saying, I like it this way.

 

[T2A`]

You wouldn't lose custom content anyway, as uninstaller scripts only delete the files they actually installed. This isn't a feature of the My Docs usage; it's been that way forever.

It's not like uninstallers run rm -rf on the top folder. D:

 

[Sir_Brizz]

So what?

I can easily back up everything that is NOT stock, delete the folder and start from scratch. You can't do that with any previous UT, or most other games.

Plus, I have several games that store stuff there, so on reinstall I can just backup that one folder and I have all of my custom content and settings and such. That's just convenient to me.

Additionally, some game reinstallers will not just quietly install over the top of the folder you are installing to. But even if they do, I still prefer this.

 

[Scuzzbuster]

I'm lukewarm to it as it stands, but I realize that it's pretty standard in the windows world these days.

I've just found installing custom content to be a little bit trickier in this structure than the old. On the other hand, all my custom content is together. There was one map pack I installed a while back and ever since I started getting some message about a duplicate file in such and such folder whenever I start up the game. I've spent a ton of time moving, remanipulating the file to no avail and I still get the message. I gave up. It doesn't impact the game itself, but it's quite annoying.

 

[N1ghtmare]

The drive that has my mydocs only has 10 gigs left, while my second which ut3 main is intalled on has over 100 gigs left. Why Epic? especially since all the mods are so large... There all all of these cool mappacks that I have to withhold from.

 

[hal]

I had to reformat for other reasons but chose not to do the typical small C partition because of the new standard. Just about every new game structures itself that way.

I don't care now really, but it did stress me out before when I had less than a GB on that partition.

 

[HudsonC]

It's a bit confusing i will admit. I put all my custom content on UT3 in the program files some put it in my Docs. It would have been better to actually place the Published folder there. Does anyone besides mappers use the UnPublished folder? I mean what is that? if you are a mapper you create folders. Seems silly to me as a PC user. Maybe it's something for the console users. Not a dig at console users I just prefer PC play.

 

[haarg]

This is done to improve how Windows does security. As a normal user you shouldn't need write access to any part of the system other than your home directory. The problem (like many of Windows' problems) is that everyone was used to the old way of doing things, resulting in situations where there was limited space on the drive or partition holding their home directory.

But it is really a non-issue, as you can install maps and other custom content in the game's base directories and they work fine. You don't need to use -nohomedir or anything.

 

[Jetfire]

T2A and Haarg have it right, it's part of Microsoft's Games for Windows standards for Vista. Believe it or not, the reasoning is valid >.<

 

[zynthetic]

AFAIK, it's a (supremely annoying and pointless) M$ standard procedure for reasons unknown. Epic just blindly followed the standard. D:

It's an effect of braindead security issues making their way into Windows. Like Haarg mentioned, there's absolutely no reason why a user would need to modify any files they did not create. Inheritely this makes the OS more secure as most threats posed to users are executed with that user's rights.
UT did this in linux (as does any app that saves any kind of config settings) and I've been wishing for it in Windows ever since. It makes creating backups of all the custom content you've installed much easier and more organized.

 

[Ignotium]

all i know is that i want to have my OS drive clean, and i dont want to install GB's of maps and content in my OS drivre when all that should go into my games/**** drive, that's all

 

[Crowze]

What Haarg/zyn said. This is partly down to the fact that Vista is more stringent on file permissions, otherwise you'd need to run UT3 with administrator privileges to update a config file, for example. For those complaining about disk space, it's simple to move the Documents folder for a single user, and possible (although less easy) to move the whole user profile folder - Google knows how.

 

[Grobut]

I'm wondering just one thing here: Would it really kill them to provide two install options? one for the My-games malarky, and one for the good old fashioned way for us small system drive people who still use XP?

Needless to say that's a question i'd like to pose to not only Epic, but anyone else in the industry who installs games to the C: drive like this.


There's nothing wrong with beeing a wee bit flexible you know..

 

[Bishop F Gantry]

Yes its nice installing something into a folder with the intent of everything being installed JUST there, only to have folders outside grow out of control

What next keep our saved progress and configs online?

 

[Hourences]

The system is utter and utter crap. Like Grobut mentioned, how about an option? I just installed another game, and in the setup I was presented with a nice little option "change savegame dir". Is that really so difficult to add...?

I too have a very small C drive, and I don't care if you can move the My Documents folder altogether or not. The fact is that I HATE my documents exactly because every godforsaken program dumps things in it without asking me! My My Documents folder is a complete and utter mess of dozens of files and folders (some with near identical names My Photos/My Pictures/Skype Pictures/etc.) I never asked for and that isn't handy when you need to find something...

My Documents is becoming so overused that it is killing itself.

And the backup thingy is not true. It was just as easy in UT1/2. You just make a subfolder, for example C:\UT\Maps\CustomMaps and you have the exact same result...

 

[Grobut]

The system is utter and utter crap. Like Grobut mentioned, how about an option? I just installed another game, and in the setup I was presented with a nice little option "change savegame dir". Is that really so difficult to add...?

I too have a very small C drive, and I don't care if you can move the My Documents folder altogether or not. The fact is that I HATE my documents exactly because every godforsaken program dumps things in it without asking me! My My Documents folder is a complete and utter mess of dozens of files and folders (some with near identical names My Photos/My Pictures/Skype Pictures/etc.) I never asked for and that isn't handy when you need to find something...

My Documents is becoming so overused that it is killing itself.

And the backup thingy is not true. It was just as easy in UT1/2. You just make a subfolder, for example C:\UT\Maps\CustomMaps and you have the exact same result...

My sentiments exactly, and trying to find your files only gets more annoying when they are scattered over various My-foldername folders spanding 3 different accounts (Admin, Username, Allusers) and several subfolders you didn't create and don't know about.

It's a bloody mess, atleast if i had created the things, i would know what went where, and could keep some order in it all, but since they are auto created, and i have no say in the matter, keeping any order in it is a Herculean task best not even attempted.

And lets not forget that the System drive is the last place on earth i want to store backups of anything, if my computer gets attacked in any way, it's the C: drive that soaks the brunt of the agression.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

The system is utter and utter crap. Like Grobut mentioned, how about an option? I just installed another game, and in the setup I was presented with a nice little option "change savegame dir". Is that really so difficult to add...?

I too have a very small C drive, and I don't care if you can move the My Documents folder altogether or not. The fact is that I HATE my documents exactly because every godforsaken program dumps things in it without asking me! My My Documents folder is a complete and utter mess of dozens of files and folders (some with near identical names My Photos/My Pictures/Skype Pictures/etc.) I never asked for and that isn't handy when you need to find something...

My Documents is becoming so overused that it is killing itself.

Why is it killing itself? It's the same thing Unix, Linux and OSX have been doing for years. It's simply correct design. In Linux, all of your personal configuration files are stored in your home directory.

The reason My Documents is so crap is because there is no STANDARD for placing files there (or at least, there hasn't been in the past, and even now it's pretty sketchy) and software developers just dump files there however they want. That really isn't a problem with My Documents, it's a problem with software developers.

Also, as far as UE1/2 is concerned, you had to make a subfolder in each content folder, then add those folders to the paths, then if you wanted to back files up grab your files from each of the content folder, blah blah blah.

Now you can save your logs, configs, content, code, etc with a single folder. How is that not better than before?

Of course, they could have done it in the game folder in a "CustomContent" folder for all it mattered for that, but as Haarg and others said, this is a security measure that is part of the Games for Windows brand.

 

[Hourences]

Why is it killing itself? It's the same thing Unix, Linux and OSX have been doing for years. It's simply correct design. In Linux, all of your personal configuration files are stored in your home directory.

How can it be correct design when it takes all the power away from the user? It has been a trend lately to have the PC decide for the user, instead of the other way around. That is not good!

I know it is a security thingy, but how hard can it be to still give the customer an option to change it? Everyone happy that way...

And in UE1 and 2 you could also make 1 general folder. Works fine. And all you had to do would be to copy that folder + 2 ini files, thats it! That is hardly a lot of work.