Vista Symbpolic Link issue

[Caspian]

Hi I have been running up to 6 WoW clients on a single vista x64 machine with one full install and the other 5 off of symbolic links like here
http://www.dual-boxing.com/wiki/index.php/Vista

I used the script at the bottom of this thread if irc.

Recently I have been having issues with some of my clients running at the same time. I get a WoW 134 error on the second client saying that one of the data files is corrupted. If I shut both clients, and start the second one first it is fine but the the other one gets the same error.

[IMG]file:///C:/Users/desimone/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot-1.png[/IMG][IMG]file:///C:/Users/desimone/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot-2.png[/IMG][IMG]file:///C:/Users/desimone/AppData/Local/Temp/moz-screenshot-3.png[/IMG]

Failed to open archive Data/wow-update-13329.MPQ. Missing or corrupted data.

Looking at the data directory there are .lock files created for a number of the MPQ files, including this specific one that is complained about every time.

The odd thing is that some other clients will start just fine with either of the problem ones?

So, my questions:
Did that make sense?
Has anyone else seen this issue? How did you resolve it if so?
Is running with the linked install still valid?

Thanks!

[Mukade]

There is no reason at all to use symlinked folders any more. You can get access to unlimited macros on each character through either ISBoxer or Jamba, so you don't need to have a seperate set of per account macros for each character.

Also both ISBoxer and HKN can be configured to handle per character settings from just one WoW install.

The change to WoW that allows the client to download while playing, without requiring the launcher.exe to run (something we had a choice about) completely broke seperate folders, due to the .lock files you're seeing.

[Caspian]

Well, I see how it has broken it. But, I wasn't using the links for macros. I was using it for performance and disk space.

Each WoW install is about 30GB. x6 is a lot of disk space. And, if each client is effectively reading the same data from disk and cache it is MUCH faster then if each is reading a separate files.

Is it just Data that is broke? Can I still share my cache? Is there a way around this at all?

[Mukade]

The original purpose for having seperate folders was to seperate the config and macros for each multiboxed character from non-boxed characters, before newer boxing software and addons made doing that irrelevant, as well as more standard addon authors realising that people want different settings for different characters.

The purpose of symlinking was to reduce the disk space and performance hit from having those seperate folders.

There is no longer any need to have seperate folders, so there is no need to symlink. Everything works fine from just one folder, because all the account's settings are seperated into per account folders under the main one, except for what is in the root config.wtf file, and different versions of that can be swapped in before WoW is launched in the few cases that you need different versions of it for each account.

[Caspian]

The original purpose for having seperate folders was to seperate the config and macros for each multiboxed character from non-boxed characters, before newer boxing software and addons made doing that irrelevant, as well as more standard addon authors realising that people want different settings for different characters.

The purpose of symlinking was to reduce the disk space and performance hit from having those seperate folders.

There is no longer any need to have seperate folders, so there is no need to symlink. Everything works fine from just one folder, because all the account's settings are seperated into per account folders under the main one, except for what is in the root config.wtf file, and different versions of that can be swapped in before WoW is launched in the few cases that you need different versions of it for each account.

Ahhh, now that it is not very late, and I have had some coffee, I understand. The only downside is that I have to type in the specific account name each time I log in. My (now) old way remembered them and that was nice. Poking around, I see where some things have migrated into the individual Account folders. Awesome, in the end this will be much easier I think.

Should I actually use the Launcher now?

Thanks again.

[Bloodcloud]

well, there is a whole WTF Folder out there.
If you use lots of addons, you still might want to use separate folders, since many addons, store their stuff in the generic Savedvariables, instead of under the realm/charactername.

this fcked up my setup a couple of times.

-> so this is the reason why I still use a symlinked setup. (and I also don't want to copy the whole data folder after a small patch...)

[HPAVC]

There is no reason at all to use symlinked folders any more. You can get access to unlimited macros on each character through either ISBoxer or Jamba, so you don't need to have a seperate set of per account macros for each character.

What the hell are you talking about? Symlinks have nothing to do with macros, of course everyone should be using them!

If you have 5 copies of the game they all grab for their own separate \Data\World.MPQ, thats 5 reads no useful cache. If they grab for the same \Data\World.MPQ thats 1 read 4 cached reads. This works after MPQ is mounted (its essentially a user mode virtual file system), not just the initial file mounting.

There is a limit on just how much is going to be buffered by the os, so those 5 reads no useful cache are actually blowing out your other cached disk objects. In the end this means your running on 1/5th of the disk cache you would normally have 5 boxing.

In a word ... deduplication; not for space savings, but for reads performance.

That said the the other customary symlinks give ease to managing patches, upgrades,addons / screen shots and what not for the slaves. Depending on how the user has things setup.

[Caspian]

The other guys are saying to run of a single install. The generic SavedVariables is now per Account, not install. You can check your WTF folder to see that. Now, with multiple clients running you are still using the same Data files so you are not taking the performance hit.

I ran two clients this way yesterday and was fine. Addons were were fine and my performance was normal.

All that said, if you are still running symlinked, how are you dealing with the locks on the MPQ files?