Can I do a simple copy of custom content between computers?

[FloridaAviator]

I have a corrupted registry on one machine that is not allowing me to launch Trainz 2012. However, I can still "see" the entire directory structure and can access it. Is it possible for me to download the content (either all or part of the User Data directory) and copy it into a fresh installation on a different machine or in a parallel directory?

Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to provide!

Dave

 

[sniper297]

Simplest way if you don't have a LAN is to pull the hard drive out of the bad computer, hook it up as a secondary drive in the good computer, then copy either the entire TS12 folder or the userdata folder to the primary drive. These days that kind of hardware swapping usually doesn't even require a screwdriver.

 

[FloridaAviator]

Thanks for the reply. I can certainly do as you suggest. I actually have access to all the data without removing the drive from the machine. It's a weird problem because there is something in the registry that has corrupted the ability to run the program even though all the data is actually there and accessible.

My real question was whether this process would actually allow me to copy these existing routes to a new installation.

Another option (if it doesn't annihilate everything) is to re-install TS12 in the same directory. Does this process wipe out all existing custom data and create a clean directory, or would it preserve all custom content that was already there?

Thanks again!

 

[sniper297]

Wipe it out, probably. If you can copy the userdata folder or even the entire TS12 folder to a different location on the same drive, try selecting the Trainz.exe file in that folder and run it from there instead of the shortcut. Or do a new install then copy the userdata folder from the backup and paste that in, whatever the last files copied in are will overwrite previous files if you answer yes to overwrites, so it's simply a matter of copying in whatever files you want as the last set.

I'm curious how you know the registry is corrupted, what are the symptoms? Usually if there's something bad in the registry it's not just one game affected, and I've had no problem running copies of Trainz on another computer without actually installing, so it really doesn't need any registry keys at all to run. Might be just the shortcut itself that's bad, you can create a new one by copying trainz.exe, change to the desktop and right click, select "paste shortcut".

Other item, if the registry itself actually IS corrupt, have you tried a system restore?

 

[JCitron]

What you'll definitely have to do is run TrainzDiag.exe. Your display hardware and system hardware has changed, and I found I needed to run this prior to the program operating on my laptop versus my desktop. The other thing I had to do was change display resolution because my desktop is 1980 x1080 versus the 1680 x 1050 on my laptop.

John

 

[j_maybury]

If it's TRS2006 you are using then you should be abble to re-install on the same drive, and location it will ask you if you want to uninstall all the sim or not, so say no to that part, and your local folder should stay in-tact, but to be on the safe side make a backup of your local folder to some where safe, in any case. :wave:

 

[slabay]

On TS2009 moving from my Mac Parallels virtual drive to my Boot Camp drive, I believe I went into Content Manager (it has been quite a while) and pointed at the hash folders in the data and "import content" like you would on a kuid folder that is not in a cdp. When I ran into a "blah blah already exists", I selected "overwrite all". It took a while, but it brought everything that I had even though I didn't necessarily have the cdp's anymore.

---Scott

 

[rjhowie]

Interestingly what sniper297 suggests works.

The present route I am working on was developing a problem re my pc causing mayhem and the advice I got here was to try moving the whole of Trainz to my other machine and I did and that helped me tremendously and I got on with this continuing project.