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Juncs
04-30-2017, 10:07 PM
I've just installed V5 [5.0.4] on W7 64. I started putting in my content, brushes etc in the correct folders though there does seem to have been name changes since V4. What was strange was that none was appearing in the application. I had to go and import it each item one at time [canvas]. I thought about relocating the content to an easier place to back up and that's when I found the location "Program Files\Ambient\Artrage\Content" was not the accepted location but in "Users".
I checked and all the folders were duplicated. When I put content in there it works.

So why is there two copies when I'm told I can't choose the location and on the other hand I have moved my users folder elsewhere and you still use the default C:\Users\....

Also at the end of the installation the run option ran the 32bit version on my 64bit system. I was not asked and clearly the installer didn't ask if I needed a 32bit version to begin with. All seems to be a bit of a muddle and would have been easy if I were allowed to choose the folder which is NOT on my system drive. I do not store a data on my system drive. In fact the reason I'm doing this is because windows stopped working a couple of weeks ago and artrage was installed on the system drive. It is not any longer.

My content folder is heading towards 1Gb and its on my system drive. Why? Why are there duplicates? Why install a 32 bit version?

HannahRage
05-01-2017, 02:45 PM
Okay, the first time AR5 runs it a) should import all the custom resources across from ArtRage 4 for you and b) should run the correct 32 or 64bit version for your system. So something went sideways there.

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a) 1GB is pretty huge, I'm guessing you have a lot of custom resources? It's possible you cancelled/skipped the set up/copying stage as it would have taken some time. You can force it to happen again by going back to the ArtRage folder in 'Users' and deleting 'resources_installed.prs' (this tells AR5 not to re-copy stuff everytime it starts up).

It's also possible that your disk permissions settings simply blocked ArtRage from copying everything over.

Or it DID copy everything over and you didn't realise and copied it all over again manually, so now you literally have duplicates. In that case, just delete the content folder from Users (with your custom stuff backed up or still in the AR4 folder) and run AR5 again.


b) Windows detects and automatically runs the correct bit version for your system. If this didn't happen, then you should be able to start the 64bit version from your start menu. If you can't, something else is wrong.

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There are two folders for Windows Technical Reasons, mostly related to read/write access and default/personal data.


The users folder is for application and user account specific stuff (e.g. preferences, all active resources), but it's hidden by default for most users. It would allow different users to have unique 'profiles' and it's the official Where You Install This Kind Of Thing location on Windows.

The Program Files is all the standard stuff you need to actually be able to access but not change and be consistent for all users on that computer - manuals, the .exe files, all default resources - but can't always be edited across different accounts on the computer as it requires admin rights.


Examples of practical stuff this affects:

You can install ArtRage once and everyone can then access it, but each user has their own individual resources. It also minimises/avoids a lot of permissions/access related problems that can show up in Windows. Less of an issue for a single user with full access rights, but it's still something we need to have.

You can delete your default presets now (which removes them from the Users folder) and restore default content from the Program Files folder later if needed. Also see above about deleting your content folder if something goes wrong and it being regenerated when you run AR5 again next.

We've also been seeing a lot of users running into permissions issues when saving on Windows, and needing to run ArtRage 4 in admin mode (right click > 'run as admin') even when in the admin account. Windows permissions issues are a pain.


Duplicated content:

The only duplicate content is the default content, and there's not really a lot of that - 129MB in total (unless you're counting multiple versions of ArtRage which will all have their own default resources). You might be better off just storing that 900ish MB of extra content elsewhere until you need it specifically.

The other current versions of ArtRage all access the same content in Users , so Lite 5, the current demo and AR5 don't duplicate custom resources the way ArtRage 4's editions did (you can safely delete AR4's resources now if you wanted).

So it's actually minimising bloat (the only downside to this is that Lite may load presets made in the full AR5 with features that just don't show up in Lite, but most people aren't going to be going back to Lite if they have the full version anyway. It also means that the demo doesn't have limited preset options).

Installing elsewhere:

You can just move the Program Files folder elsewhere, but if you do install it to an external drive, make sure to go to Edit > AR Preferences > Advanced Preferences and make sure that the scratch disk for temporary files is set to a main hard drive (otherwise things may get very slow. As in freezing up the computer slow).


Disclaimer: not the programmers, just the tech person who interprets ;)