How to completely remove content installed from zips ie: no un-installers
Aave Nainen
Posts: 1,108
Hi all, I've managed to get my DAZ content directories into a real mess and would like to remove some -not from DAZ Store- content that was installed with zips, I don't have un-installers and I'm having a problem with getting messages like " the folder/file you are trying to remove is no longer in this location" etc. etc. This has me going around in circles......when I open said folders the stuff is still there but I can't get rid of it!
Is there a certain order I must follow to delete/remove stuff?
I'm wondering if this is a quirk in Windows 7?
Any advice or help would be appreciated!
I'm using DAZ Studio 4.6 on a Windows 7 (64) system
Aave
Comments
How are you trying to delete the content, and what is giving you this error message? Is it Win 7?
The only way that I know of to get rid of everything that you installed via a ZIP file, is to unzip the original file again to a temporary folder to see what it contains, and then track down each item in your library and delete it using Windows.
I have never had Win 7 telling me that files are not there when I can see them using Windows Explorer, that sounds really strange.
It's the individual folders in My Library/data that I'm having problems with.......that message pops up when I've tried to delete the data folder for any given content. I can't delete them........if I open the data file and try to delete the individual folders within I get the same message........and yet they are there still. I'm wondering if I need to delete the folders in a certain order....ie the stuff that shows up for loading the product within DAZ first, then the corresponding data folder or the other way around.
Is this using Windows Explorer? Is it Windows that wont let you delete them?
I assume so......in Explorer I'm selecting the folder(s) and hitting delete, or right clicking and selecting delete. Either way is same result
I have never had this problem, but I found this video on YouTube which may be a way around the problem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANRZ_ZRHJEw
See if that helps. It is nothing to do with DAZ Studio, it is a Windows foul up I'm afraid.
No, it is not a quirk of Windows 7, but how DAZ3D Studio manage content files: using a database. Now, the contents of your folders can be quite different from the content of the database, thus you have the curious situation of having certain files but Studio complains it doesn't have them.
The solution I found is quite easy: go to C:\Program Data\DAZ3D\Content Management Service\Databases and delete all the crap there. Then restart your DAZ3D Studio, go to your Content Library and select Scan Known Directories for Files. That will rebuild your database.
Now, rebuilding your database will fix most issues, except when partial content was deleted; for instance: you have the materials but not the objects.
Yes, this has confused a lot of people since the idea was introduced. The way the system works in the current D|S version is that there are several different ways of looking at your content; only one of them (Content Library, DAZ|Studio or Poser Formats) lets you actually look at the arrangement of actual files stored on your actual physical hard drives. All the others are looking at a filtered and sorted view of a database of pointers to those files. If you add content but don't update the database, you'll never find the new content. If you manually delete the files, but don't update the database, you have deleted content that "won't go away".
The OP says that he is using Windows Explorer, and he cannot delete the files using it. I don't see that this has anything at all to do with the database setup in DAZ Studio. If he is trying to delete these items from within DAZ Studio, then he has not said so, I did ask that.