Installation An alternative to the Orbiter.cfg Directory Redirect for Textures

[Iacomus Maximus]

Fellow Orbiter Enthusiasts,
I have scoured the forum for instructions on how to redirect the massive new Textures directory
from my current installation location to a more accommodating central location...
but no no avail. I feel I made a valiant effort but all I could find was the following from the page
"Installing beta versions":
"Add the line
TextureDir = <path-to-Orbiter2016>\Textures\",
where <path-to-Orbiter2016> is the full path to your Orbiter2016 root installation directory."
However I was completely unable to get it to work.
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The following is the solution I came up with and am sharing with anyone else who is in need of redirecting the location of this or any other directory.
I have 120 gig SSD named Orbiter and mapped to O: where O:/Orbiter2016 is installed.
I also have a 4 terabyte RAID5 Documents drive mapped to D: where I have all my Orbiter offline files saved to D:/Software/Orbiter/
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My reason for needing this solution is to save space on my 120 gig SSD -
if you have sufficient space on your installation drive then this solution is most likely not important to you.
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First, rename the Textures directory in your Orbiter installation, which for me is O:/Orbiter2016/Textures, to Textures_2016 - (because it is incompatible with previous versions)
Second, copy or move the Textures_2016 to a convenient location such as D:/Software/Orbiter/Textures_2016
Third, Open a Command Window as Administrator:
Using the following format: 'mklink /J link target' without the quotes
mklink /J O:/Orbiter2016/Textures D:/Software/Orbiter/Textures_2016
Fourth, type 'dir' to view the new symbolic directory entry and also view it using a standard Windows File Explorer Window
to ensure it is there and working - it will look like a directory but have a little arrow in the bottom left corner.

This new symbolic Textures directory in your Orbiter installation will appear as an actual directory to Orbiter but is linked to the new location of the massive Textures directory in its new location.
If you copied the Textures directory, test to ensure the new configuration is working, then delete the original directory - freeing up more than 100+ gigs of disk space.

 

[Marijn]

Symlinks are an ideal solution. All Hi-res textures exist only once on my partition, regardless of the amount of Orbiter installations.

I have scoured the forum for instructions on how to redirect the massive new Textures directory
form my current installation location to a more accommodating central location...
but no no avail.

My post here deals with hi-res texture handling in Orbiter: https://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?p=581354&postcount=33

I did upload a pair of videoclips a little while ago about how this can be done in an convenient way, also with the usage of mod installation managers like JSGME. The links to the videos are in that post. These vids aren't actual anymore because it was experimental then, I have changed many things since. I might do a new one.

The con of your approach is that you can't use a mod manager that way if I am not mistaken.

This new symbolic Textures directory in your Orbiter installation will appear as an actual directory to Orbiter but is linked to the new location of the massive Textures directory in its new location.

Beware that no such thing exists with symlinks as the orginial folder. The OS and therefore any other application like a mod manager can't tell the difference between symlinked files. You can't actually tell yourselves because the linked files have the same file size. This means that the sum of all file sizes can exceed your maximum disk size. That can be confusing.

The way I see it: The 'orginial' file is the last file remaining when deleting any linked files. If you symlink file a to b and c. And then delete a and b, c is the new 'original' file.

---------- Post added at 09:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:03 PM ----------

Edit: I am not sure what the /j parameter exactly does, so there may be an orginal and fake file after all. Not sure.

 

[Iacomus Maximus]

This solution creates a linked directory at the directory level not at the file level.

The /J creates a 'hard' directory link... a link from directory-link to an actual directory is created.

I see no reason why any management software wouldn't work with this.

 

[Marijn]

I see no reason why any management software wouldn't work with this.

Upon activation of a mod, a mod manager application like JSGME copies the contents of a folder to a folder within the game installation. If that add-on happens to be a hi-res texture add-on with large files, it will copy these large files. I don't think it will make any difference whether the files were created using mklink. I think you will end up with copies of the large files in the Orbiter installation.

 

[Iacomus Maximus]

I don't think you understand how this works...
I'm not making links to the files, I'm making a link to the directory.