Transferring Daz Content To New PC: Can I Essentially Just Copy & Paste

bevdog896_d08d9c913a

Hi there! 

So I'll hopefully be getting a new PC soon! My plan is to freshly install Daz Studio and DIM, and then copy "my library" and "my daz3d content library" from my old PC to the new PC overwriting the same folders created by the fresh Daz install...

Will that work? 

Richard Haseltine

You will lose any metadata until you reimport, and any custom metadata unless you open Content DB Maintenenance on the old machine (the Content Library option menu) and select Export user data before copying the folders from the old machine. Groups, such as the New flag, will be lost unless you copy the whole database across.

Dime stoes the list of installed files in - by default - the manifests folder in its Public Documents folder. Those do record the exact location of the files, so unless you are using exactly the same location on both machines it will not be able to uninstall the old files if you need to (unless you use a text editor to edit them)

Catherine3678ab

If bandwidth is no problem, speaking from experience, you will find that allowing DIM to download and install all available content is a lot faster than trying to convince the OS to copy over large folders.

The other matter with copying over large folders, it can be a very time consuming activity which may or not go faster by copying over the files in batches.

Unless you have some special cord to join 2 computers ... you would also be needing to copy them to an external drive for it to act as the intermediary.

The option I chose was to have the bulk of content on the external drive and point D/S to it. So next time I change computers, I can simply plug the external into the next computer.

bevdog896_d08d9c913a

Richard Haseltine said:

You will lose any metadata until you reimport, and any custom metadata unless you open Content DB Maintenenance on the old machine (the Content Library option menu) and select Export user data before copying the folders from the old machine. Groups, such as the New flag, will be lost unless you copy the whole database across.

Dime stoes the list of installed files in - by default - the manifests folder in its Public Documents folder. Those do record the exact location of the files, so unless you are using exactly the same location on both machines it will not be able to uninstall the old files if you need to (unless you use a text editor to edit them)

Hey thanks for the info. 

Out of interest, what would be the downside of losing metadata? 

Also I do plan on copying over the manifest folder from my old machine to the new one (to the same location etc). Will things work as intended if I do that properly? 

Cheers :) 

bevdog896_d08d9c913a

Catherine3678ab said:

If bandwidth is no problem, speaking from experience, you will find that allowing DIM to download and install all available content is a lot faster than trying to convince the OS to copy over large folders.

The other matter with copying over large folders, it can be a very time consuming activity which may or not go faster by copying over the files in batches.

Unless you have some special cord to join 2 computers ... you would also be needing to copy them to an external drive for it to act as the intermediary.

The option I chose was to have the bulk of content on the external drive and point D/S to it. So next time I change computers, I can simply plug the external into the next computer.

Hey there, thanks for the response! 

I did consider just re-downloading and re-installing using DIM but I have a lot of content in the "My Daz3d Library" from both the Daz store and other stores, which is why I was hoping I could just copy everything across. Also I'm not too concered about the time just as long as it (hopefully) works.

The last thing you mentioned is definitely something I plan to do in the future, just want to get everything over and working first. If I do what I initially mentioned, do you reckon everything will work as intended? 

Thanks again :) 

Catherine3678ab

Should work. Except as I mentioned, unless you have a special link to put 2 computers together, you will need a storage device for the go between.

I don't use the metadata, don't use Smart Content. So for those you may need to ask the new D/S to reimport the metadata [and go enjoy a cup of coffee or something while it does that].

Richard Haseltine

bevdog896_d08d9c913a said:

Richard Haseltine said:

You will lose any metadata until you reimport, and any custom metadata unless you open Content DB Maintenenance on the old machine (the Content Library option menu) and select Export user data before copying the folders from the old machine. Groups, such as the New flag, will be lost unless you copy the whole database across.

Dime stoes the list of installed files in - by default - the manifests folder in its Public Documents folder. Those do record the exact location of the files, so unless you are using exactly the same location on both machines it will not be able to uninstall the old files if you need to (unless you use a text editor to edit them)

Hey thanks for the info. 

Out of interest, what would be the downside of losing metadata? 

You'd lose files showing in Smart Content, Presets tabs of property panes, Categories and Products in the content Library pane, at least some functionaility in AutoFit, and probably other things that I am not recalling right now.

Also I do plan on copying over the manifest folder from my old machine to the new one (to the same location etc). Will things work as intended if I do that properly? 

The question is whether the content iss till in the same place on the old machine as it was on the old. It would be if you used the default location in the public Documents folder, but might not be for a custom location.

Cheers :) 

bevdog896_d08d9c913a

Richard Haseltine said:

bevdog896_d08d9c913a said:

Richard Haseltine said:

You will lose any metadata until you reimport, and any custom metadata unless you open Content DB Maintenenance on the old machine (the Content Library option menu) and select Export user data before copying the folders from the old machine. Groups, such as the New flag, will be lost unless you copy the whole database across.

Dime stoes the list of installed files in - by default - the manifests folder in its Public Documents folder. Those do record the exact location of the files, so unless you are using exactly the same location on both machines it will not be able to uninstall the old files if you need to (unless you use a text editor to edit them)

Hey thanks for the info. 

Out of interest, what would be the downside of losing metadata? 

You'd lose files showing in Smart Content, Presets tabs of property panes, Categories and Products in the content Library pane, at least some functionaility in AutoFit, and probably other things that I am not recalling right now.

Also I do plan on copying over the manifest folder from my old machine to the new one (to the same location etc). Will things work as intended if I do that properly? 

The question is whether the content iss till in the same place on the old machine as it was on the old. It would be if you used the default location in the public Documents folder, but might not be for a custom location.

Cheers :) 

Thanks for clearing that up for me mate, really appreciate it! Okie dokie, I'll definitely try to export the metadata then :)

In regard to locations, everthing is in the default locations on my current machine so I'll definitely keep that the same for the new one.

Thanks again :)