Multiple Installs, the Data Folder, and Symbolic Links on Win XP

[Vicker]

How on earth do I set up a symbolic link for my data folders on windows XP? I've been searching around for hours and I can't find anything terribly useful.

[Katharsis]

Junction Link Magic (http://www.rekenwonder.com/linkmagic.htm) will do it for ya.

[noir]

How would you want to configure it? Which folders need to be set up as symbolic links?

[BobGnarly]

This ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&threadID=6750') thread might help you out a little.

[Vicker]

I'm using x64. Winbolic Link and BobGnarly's Junction program don't seem to work for x64. I haven't tried Katharsis's link. Are there any programs out there that are specifically written for x64?

[Otlecs]

program don't seem to work for x64

Junction (downloaded from here (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768.aspx))works fine under Vista 64, and I'd expect it to work under XP64 too.

That is making the very obvious assumption that you have an NTFS file system of course :)

I used it just this past weekend as part of my rebuild after upgrading from Vista32 to Vista64.

What error message do you get?

[Drizzit]

I used this Wiki ('http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_symbolic_link') to do mine. I read it like 10 times before i did it. Just take your time. The first one took me almost 10 minutes to do (wanted to be sure), the next 4 took 10 seconds.

[Vicker]

[quote]program don't seem to work for x64

Junction (downloaded from I used this Wiki to do mine. I read it like 10 times before i did it. Just take your time. The first one took me almost 10 minutes to do (wanted to be sure), the next 4 took 10 seconds. ('http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_symbolic_link')When I attempt to use the "MKLINK" command in cmd, I get an error message that says, "'MKLINK' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file."

[Vicker]

[quote='Otlecs',index.php?page=Thread&postID=84019#post84019]Junction (downloaded from I used this Wiki to do mine. I read it like 10 times before i did it. Just take your time. The first one took me almost 10 minutes to do (wanted to be sure), the next 4 took 10 seconds. ('http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_symbolic_link')When I attempt to use the "MKLINK" command in cmd, I get an error message that says, "'MKLINK' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file."

[Vicker]

Sorry for the multiple posts... Something goofy is going on and it won't let me fix it.

I downloaded and ran "Junction.exe". When I try to run the program, a black cmd-looking window flashes on the screen for a split second and then disappears. Nothing else happens.
When I attempt to use the "MKLINK" command in cmd, I get an error message that says, "'MKLINK' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file."

[BobGnarly]

Sorry for the multiple posts... Something goofy is going on and it won't let me fix it.

I downloaded and ran "Junction.exe". When I try to run the program, a black cmd-looking window flashes on the screen for a split second and then disappears. Nothing else happens.
When I attempt to use the "MKLINK" command in cmd, I get an error message that says, "'MKLINK' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file."


junction is a cmd line program, so it spawns a shell. you have to use it from a shell to provide the parameters that it requires. click the link i reference above and you can see an example of how to use it.

as far as mklink not working, hmm, not sure on that. what version of windows are you running?

[Otlecs]

When I attempt to use the "MKLINK" command in cmd, I get an error message that says, "'MKLINK' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file."
Ah, that just means Windows can't find the program. Do you know how to use shell ("DOS") commands?

You need to fire up a command line prompt, then either make sure MKLINK is in your path, copy it to your current directory, or invoke it using the full path name (\fred\mklink <blah blah blah>).

If you don't know how to use shell commands, post again and I'll give more details. Hopefully this and the other few meaningful posts won't have gotten lost in the now encouraged sea of "can't be bothered to read the Wiki" posts (again) by then.

If you don't see a reply, feel free to drop me a PM.

[Drizzit]

Your getting that error message because you are on XP. Symbolic links only work on vista (didn't read your whole question just saw symbolic link not xp). What you need to do is download Junction (from microsoft website). This is a really good forum topic about it PowerShell script to create symbolically linked (mklink) copies of WoW ('http://www.dual-boxing.com/forums/index.php?page=Thread&postID=41258&highlight=junction#post41258'). Give it a read though. Junction is just like symbolic link, but it doesn't come already on xp you have to download it. It is a simple little app. I can't help you too much on it (i used symbolic not junction) but that thread should be good.

Don't take this the wrong way. Try using the search function on Junction and then on Symbolic. There are not that many posts out there about it, so it shouldn't take you too long to learn how to use junction. I looked over the wiki on junction quick and it doesn't seem that good (again i said quick) so you might even have to google it.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

When I set mine up on one box, I copied everything to the alt folders and Junction Linked the "DATA" folder only, as that is the one that's 4-7GB. :P The rest is only a couple hundred MB so not a big deal.

[Vicker]

It works! I got junction.exe to work! A few things that I had some trouble with but finally figured out that might be useful for someone else reading how to do this:

1) As BobGnarly said, I needed to run junction.exe from cmd.

2) Junction.exe doesn't like spaces in folder names. I had to rename my folders to not contain spaces. If anyone knows a way to get around this I'd be interested in knowing, but it works fine as it is so I'm satisfied.

[Otlecs]

Ah, good news indeed :)


Junction.exe doesn't like spaces in folder names. I had to rename my folders to not contain spaces. If anyone knows a way to get around this I'd be interested in knowing, but it works fine as it is so I'm satisfied.
Just quote the entire filename ("C:\Games\World of Warcraft Main\Interface", etc).

[Drizzit]

Junction.exe doesn't like spaces in folder names. I had to rename my folders to not contain spaces. If anyone knows a way to get around this I'd be interested in knowing, but it works fine as it is so I'm satisfied.

Welcome to the world of programming. 2 things that you can do
1) what they call camel. This is when you take out the spaces and cap the first letter of each word. ThisIsAnExampleOfCamel
- Good, you get rid of the spaces
- Bad, when you camel words that are only 1 letter. IAmAExample
2) Replace " " with "_". This_Is_An_Example_Of_This
- Good, when words that are only 1 letter .I_am_a_example. also you do not have to cap the first letter of the names
- Bad, when you can only have a certain amount out letters

[Otlecs]

2 things that you can do
Or you could just enclose the whole name in double quotes - "This is not a Camel", which works perfectly :)

[Drizzit]

2 things that you can do
Or you could just enclose the whole name in double quotes - "This is not a Camel", which works perfectly :)True... keep forgetting that. Keep thinking in programming where you cannot have spaces and names can only be 16 in length.

[Ozbert]

I haven't read any of the other replies, but here's how I do it:

- My multiboxing WoW installs will be inside D:\boxing\
- I run four clients on the machine in question

1. Create directories inside D:\boxing\ named wow1, wow2, wow3, wow4 and wow5.

2. Do a fresh installation of WoW into D:\boxing\wow1\ (or copy your singleboxing installation into here)

3. In directories wow[2345], I create the following subdirectories:
- Data
- Interface
- WTF
- WTF\Account

4. From D:\boxing\ run 'junction.exe' as follows:


junction.exe wow2\Data wow1\Data
junction.exe wow2\Interface wow1\Interface
junction.exe wow2\WTF\Account wow1\WTF\Account


5. Repeat the above replacing wow2 with wow[345].

6. Copy only the files (not the subdirectories) from D:\boxing\wow1 into D:\boxing\wow[2345]

Job done.

Now I have five WoW installations, all sharing the same Data, Interface and Account subdirs. That's saved me about 32GB of disk space, greatly reduced disk thrashing while running multiple clients, and means that any addons I install will be automatically shared between all five clients. Also the profiles for each of my WoW accounts all reside in the same shared location, which makes it easier to back them up.

When playing, I run the clients in wow[2345] and leave wow1 alone.

When patch time comes, I run the client in wow1, let it update, then perform step 6 above again.

Hope this helps.


PS. The 'wow[2345]' notation is shorthand for 'wow2, wow3, wow4, wow5' in case that wasn't clear.

[brontes]

Interesting. I setup a complete copy of the wow install on a separate drive for each with the thought that it would reduce the HDD bottleneck while loading multiple instances. I symlinked most of the configuration stuff but didn't even think of symlinking all the data files. I wonder how running how multiple instances from one data install compares to multiple hard drives. Maybe HDD cacheing would speed up load times (as more often than not the majority of the stuff you're loading is the same.) I'm definitely going to try this out.

[brontes]

Symlinking the data is noticeably faster than multiple installs on multiple drives. :D Thanks for the tip!