Custom Temporary Folder Paths for Installer

[Worrazen]

Hello

 

The installation would be completed much faster if the installer was provided different storage devices to work with.

 

Currently when you select the install path the downloaded files are stored in the installation directory under "_downloads\.torrents", secondly, after download completes they are unpacked to "root\_downloads"

 

This would also work well when trying to directly install to a SSD, but you would want to avoid the extra writing (DL & unpack)

 

The Installer GUI should, after setting the Install Path provide a checkbox whether or not to proceed to another page to setup temp install paths, OR, simply go to the page but provide a SKIP button, which would use the existing behavior. The page where temporary download and temporary unpacking path are set would have a message that would explain the users the intent of the feature.

 

Only workaround currently seeming possible is the use of NTFS Hardlinks (Link Shell Extension) creating a folder "_downloads" on another Storage Device, however you would then have to create additional hardlinks on a tertiary disk for each of the unpacked folders inside the "_downloads" source folder, the unpacking uses root folder structure so there's more than 5 major folders.

 

On the other hand, why the heck unpacking isn't going directly into the installation, looking at it quickly, I don't see the point what additional process there is between unpacking and installing other than a unnecessary copy-paste, it should be a move operation then.

 

Installation does take additional time as much as unpacking almost, so it has to be a copy, it should be a move operation because that would be instant, because only NTFS metadata would have to be changed to make the files appear. In that case the unpacking part should be renamed to "Unpacking & Installing" or just "Installing ..." and the third step would become obsolete.

 

Also while I'm here, the unpacking procedure many times seems to show like it's going very slow at the end, keeps getting slower, while the activity LED for the HDDs is full-on.

 

 

EDIT: Hardlink workaround is not possible, It was going nice, but now when the unpacking was finished an error has appeared:

 

Can't move E:\..\..\_downloads\API/DCS_ControlAPI.txt to E:\..\..\_downloads\API/DCS_ControlAPI.txt (17): The system cannot move the file to a different disk drive.

 

Hopefully this is sorted out before 2.5 comes because a lot of people will be doing new installs or migrating. High Priority!

 

I always avoid doing copy-pastes on the same disk in all my other work, I just feels sometimes that HDDs are kinda grinding to a halt and having extra strain when doing this type of read-write, just asking for file corruption.

Edited May 9, 2017 by Worrazen

[Worrazen]

After the error appears the updater closes it self.

 

I tried manually copying the unpacked files, it appears it worked without any problems.

 

But it breakes the updater, updater doesn't know what happened and keeps trying to move nonexistent files, it's not working well with hardlinks to begin with.

Edited May 10, 2017 by Worrazen

[c0ff]

Files from _downloads are not copied after unpacking, but hardlinked.

So it is optimized already.