Change Default Folder Locations (Saved Games, Tracks, Etc.)

[TurtleShroom]

Good evening.

I have played RCT2 since I was a very small child, and downloaded your "Open Roller Coaster Tycoon II" extension as an adult, and have since been unable to enjoy the game without it.

However, one thing that has driven me insane this entire time is the issue in which the game determines where your files are saved. Tracks, Saved Games, and such are by  default stored in two locations. One is in the My Documents folder, and the other is where the files actually belong, in the Infogrames Interactive folder. In a few cases, I've seen tracks in the Program Files appear duplicated in both the My Documents, causing unnecessary and extremely annoying bloat.

Many people have more than one hard drive, and others don't use the My Documents folder at all. Those who want to relocate their RCT2 tracks, saved games, and so on to any other path on the computer or network are forced to use Symbolic Link Junctions.

This should not be allowed to stand. I humbly ask that this feature be added, in which all of the My Document folders can EACH be directed to ANY custom path, instead of the default. By this, I mean the following: HEIGHTMAP, LANDSCAPE, OBJECT, REPLAY, SAVE, SCENARIO, SEQUENCE, THEMES, TRACK, and the indices.

The obvious and most logical decision would have been to use the Infogrames Interactive folder, but that decision was rejected for this. It would be a huge service to people who split their folders across hard drives (like me) and those who hate splitting their files when there is already a folder allocated in the Program Files.

I find it frustrating and confusing as to why one of the simplest Quality of Life features, choosing your own custom directories, STILL haven't been added after all of these years.

I hope this serious oversight can be rectified in upcoming versions.

 

Thank you very much.

 

Warm regards,

-TURTLESHROOM

 

[TheKillerChicken]

I also would love to see such a feature as I have a 6-month to 1-year windows reinstall rule and I tend to forget about the files stored on my C:\ partition and end up losing them to a re-format.

[jensj12]

The Infogrames Interactive folder (depending on how you got RCT2) is not used by OpenRCT2 (and would cause problems if it did). It merely imported your RCT2 data from there.

There is already a way to specify which folder to use, see #2196. Launch OpenRCT2 with the

--user-data-path

command line argument, but it might need some experimenting.

For older discussions, see #10042 #5348

[Gymnasiast]

Not entirely sure about that tone. You seem overly confident, especially since some things you said are simply not true.

The Infogrames Interactive folder is only read by OpenRCT2 for its assets, and never written to. Back in the Windows 9x days, programs happily wrote to Program Files, but this has now been closed off for a very good reason. So no, it’s not at all "logical and obvious". It would require OpenRCT2 to run as admin (dangerous, and for no good reason), or to blow the permissions of those folder wide open. Also, computers can have multiple users, which is another reason why it’s useful to have the files you created in your own user folders.

Additionally, you can simply move your Documents folder to another hard drive using drag and drop, and Windows will direct programs (including OpenRCT2) to there. This is a much easier solution than to ignore the folder altogether and try and work against the OS.

 

[TurtleShroom]

4 minutes ago, Gymnasiast said:

Not entirely sure about that tone. You seem overly confident, especially since some things you said are simply not true.

The Infogrames Interactive folder is only read by OpenRCT2 for its assets, and never written to. Back in the Windows 9x days, programs happily wrote to Program Files, but this has now been closed off for a very good reason. So no, it’s not at all "logical and obvious". It would require OpenRCT2 to run as admin (dangerous, and for no good reason), or to blow the permissions of those folder wide open. Also, computers can have multiple users, which is another reason why it’s useful to have the files you created in your own user folders.

 

 

There is never a good reason to deny the right of the consumer to opt-out. Sawyer and Infogrames knew what they were doing, and I am pretty sure all of us who played the actual, unedited game didn't mind sharing Tracks.

Punishing people who know what they are doing because people that don't know jack about computers MIGHT do something is a recurring theme of modern software developers, and I consider it abominable and an act of hubris. That assumption is why Microsoft permanently made almost every CD-ROM game before 2008 AD unplayable on "Windows X" because someone MIGHT expose themselves to an error on the SECDRV Driver. They gave no opt-out, and I lost many games. Society lost thousands, if not tens of thousands.  It's also why Adobe napalm bombed twenty-five years of Internet content by force, and made it straight-up prohibited to opt out. That's not to mention that Microsoft could sneak a key logger or governmental back door in any system update (and almost certainly already have), and there is no reprieve or safety. It should have been an opt-out, not an opt-in, and not giving that option to exit should be illegal. Those decisions, plus compulsory updates and no privacy, is why I've never upgraded above my "Windows VII", no matter the security risks I face for this decision.

First and foremost, giving your program administrator permissions is not some sort of threat to your computer if you are diligent in dealing with bugs and have a program with a very, VERY narrow focus, as you do. I've ran "Open Roller Coaster Tycoon II" as an Administrator every time I've played it, for years. ORCT2 can be played offline, and if there is any exploit to take control of the computer through an ORCT2 server, no one's found it yet. Why should the ORCT2 development board act as if one exists, thereby punishing people that know what they are doing, instead of waiting for it to be discovered?

You don't even have to automatically enable administrative positions. That assumes everyone wants to put the paths in the Infrogrames Interactive folder where they were intended to be placed. You could simply generate a notice when you change the ORCT2 to an area that would require administrator positions, stating that "ORCT2 requires administrative positions to utilize this path". That way, people can have their choice without compromising security; that wouldn't happen anyway, you designed this game far too well to make that hole easy to find. ORCT2 is a reverse-engineered version of one of the safest and most well-coded video games ever, so I doubt you're going to run into exploits unless Sawyer himself left one.

Second, you actually believe that the precedent of writing to the Program Files is gone? Have you ever used the Steam Launcher Program? EVERYTHING in that program, including all Mods downloaded from the Steam Workshop, all custom content, all screenshots and images, and so on are ALL read AND written to the Program Files. That doesn't matter if the user is a Guest or an Administrator, or anyone else in between. Is Valve working against the OS? Is Ludeon ("Rimworld's" creator) working against the OS?

If there is some security prevention blocking writing data to the Program Files, I've never seen it in my twenty-five years of computing, unless my user account was deliberately restricted like the Guests, or otherwise blocked via things like the Group Policy Editor. For an example of a very recent game that writes to the Program Files folder on ANY account, refer to "Rimworld", which stores all Mods in either the Steam Workshop.

I think that people who download your game should be allowed to decide where the folders go, AND decide what the names of the folders are. If a person wants their Tracks folder on their "I" drive and their "Saved Games" folder in the My Documents folder, that should be permitted.

 

Quote

Additionally, you can simply move your Documents folder to another hard drive using drag and drop, and Windows will direct programs (including OpenRCT2) to there. This is a much easier solution than to ignore the folder altogether and try and work against the OS.

 

Absolutely not. The My Documents Folder is defined in the Registry, just like My Pictures, My Music, and my Videos. A failture to locate them causes your User Profile to get corrupted. You have to create a new user with a working path to get back in and change the Registry for the locked out account.

 

 

On 17/09/2022 at 04:10, jensj12 said:

The Infogrames Interactive folder (depending on how you got RCT2) is not used by OpenRCT2 (and would cause problems if it did). It merely imported your RCT2 data from there.

There is already a way to specify which folder to use, see #2196. Launch OpenRCT2 with the

--user-data-path

command line argument, but it might need some experimenting.

For older discussions, see #10042 #5348

Thank you for that.

It's a fantastic start, but it appears that it doesn't allow me to change the NAME of the folders. I would still have bloated, duplicitous folders because of this silly restriction.

[TheKillerChicken]

4 hours ago, TurtleShroom said:

There is never a good reason to deny the right of the consumer to opt-out. Sawyer and Infogrames knew what they were doing, and I am pretty sure all of us who played the actual, unedited game didn't mind sharing Tracks.

Punishing people who know what they are doing because people that don't know jack about computers MIGHT do something is a recurring theme of modern software developers, and I consider it abominable and an act of hubris. That assumption is why Microsoft permanently made almost every CD-ROM game before 2008 AD unplayable on "Windows X" because someone MIGHT expose themselves to an error on the SECDRV Driver. They gave no opt-out, and I lost many games. Society lost thousands, if not tens of thousands.  It's also why Adobe napalm bombed twenty-five years of Internet content by force, and made it straight-up prohibited to opt out. That's not to mention that Microsoft could sneak a key logger or governmental back door in any system update (and almost certainly already have), and there is no reprieve or safety. It should have been an opt-out, not an opt-in, and not giving that option to exit should be illegal. Those decisions, plus compulsory updates and no privacy, is why I've never upgraded above my "Windows VII", no matter the security risks I face for this decision.

First and foremost, giving your program administrator permissions is not some sort of threat to your computer if you are diligent in dealing with bugs and have a program with a very, VERY narrow focus, as you do. I've ran "Open Roller Coaster Tycoon II" as an Administrator every time I've played it, for years. ORCT2 can be played offline, and if there is any exploit to take control of the computer through an ORCT2 server, no one's found it yet. Why should the ORCT2 development board act as if one exists, thereby punishing people that know what they are doing, instead of waiting for it to be discovered?

You don't even have to automatically enable administrative positions. That assumes everyone wants to put the paths in the Infrogrames Interactive folder where they were intended to be placed. You could simply generate a notice when you change the ORCT2 to an area that would require administrator positions, stating that "ORCT2 requires administrative positions to utilize this path". That way, people can have their choice without compromising security; that wouldn't happen anyway, you designed this game far too well to make that hole easy to find. ORCT2 is a reverse-engineered version of one of the safest and most well-coded video games ever, so I doubt you're going to run into exploits unless Sawyer himself left one.

Second, you actually believe that the precedent of writing to the Program Files is gone? Have you ever used the Steam Launcher Program? EVERYTHING in that program, including all Mods downloaded from the Steam Workshop, all custom content, all screenshots and images, and so on are ALL read AND written to the Program Files. That doesn't matter if the user is a Guest or an Administrator, or anyone else in between. Is Valve working against the OS? Is Ludeon ("Rimworld's" creator) working against the OS?

If there is some security prevention blocking writing data to the Program Files, I've never seen it in my twenty-five years of computing, unless my user account was deliberately restricted like the Guests, or otherwise blocked via things like the Group Policy Editor. For an example of a very recent game that writes to the Program Files folder on ANY account, refer to "Rimworld", which stores all Mods in either the Steam Workshop.

I think that people who download your game should be allowed to decide where the folders go, AND decide what the names of the folders are. If a person wants their Tracks folder on their "I" drive and their "Saved Games" folder in the My Documents folder, that should be permitted.

 

 

Absolutely not. The My Documents Folder is defined in the Registry, just like My Pictures, My Music, and my Videos. A failture to locate them causes your User Profile to get corrupted. You have to create a new user with a working path to get back in and change the Registry for the locked out account.

 

 

Thank you for that.

It's a fantastic start, but it appears that it doesn't allow me to change the NAME of the folders. I would still have bloated, duplicitous folders because of this silly restriction.

Here is the thing with Micro$courage: They control the courts both U.S. and Internationally. If anyone tries to go up against them, they can simply shut down the world or simply even weaponise the computers with windows 8.1 and newer due to the cortana integration. I brute-force removed all of that from my Windows 10 Installation and also use Untangle Unified Threat Management OS and Pi-Hole (both Linux Kernels) and blocked off anything to do with windows update and any hidden telemetry. My suggestion, if you don't like the windows setup, go with Linux (Ubuntu or Linux Mint are recommended) or even MacOS.

[Gymnasiast]

I provided the explanation, either take it or leave it. I don’t have time for a long big ramble about how MS is evil or how we know nothing about security and are bad people for not offering the feature you think you deserve (like you did before when a certain hard-to-maintain feature was removed), or downvoting my answers just because I refuse to submit to your demands.