Vista Issues

[Fa'atau82]

Hi guys and girl.

I have an IT question to ask, because it is seriously bothering me now. As you may know i modify computer games. To cut a long story short, i have a folder in my C:/ which runs the game. I have added all my files into it and all is perfect.

Now, for the issue. If i copy the gamefiles from that folder to anywhere else on the pc, they are not the same.. they actually revert to a previous state, almost like they have not saved, but clearly they have as the game reads them.

I can't seem to copy them as they are in the C:/ into a zip/rar to complete the mod, so essentially i cannot get my data from my PC to another PC without these odd changes. Some of the files are ok, but others are not.

This is a little bit out of my depth, and i know Vista is full of bugs, and this has never happened to me before. All i can say i have done is that i have not saved over the files, rather i have opened them up from inside the folder, edited it, saved it and all is fine, until i try to move them anywhere else.

I notice the folder is ticked as 'read only'. Would this have any affect on why it won't seem to copy the files?

Please help if you can. I have tried everything i can and i can't get them off my PC for others to install.

Any ideas?

 

[dullonien]

That is quite an odd problem you've encountered there! The only thing I can think of is logging in under safe mode and doing it that way. There are alot of protection methods used my Microsoft in the Program Files and Windows folders, to stop accidental dletion of files, safe mode usually allowed full control of these folders.

To enter safe mode tap F8 when the pc is booting, then navigate to Safe Mode, with or without networking, doesn't matter.

I am unsure if this will work though, as you're not having difficulty actually copying the files, so let us know. Hopefully there's somone with more in depth knowlage, I can fix most issues, but complicated things usually end in a clean reinstall of Windows for me!

 

[Fa'atau82]

It is caused by editing the file in the folder and not copying it into another one. I haven't done anything different.. you have to import the graphic but i find that vista sometimes makes duplicate copies of files, that you can only find in the program's browser.

 

[dullonien]

It could be occuring due to the 'shadow copy' option Microsoft added to files and folders in Vista, where previous versions whould be stored and able to be recovered if a file or folder was accidently modified. I believe this function relies on both the 'Backup' and 'System Restore' systems built into Vista.

Try clearing your system restore points, that will delete the shadow copy saved for the file and hopefully stopping it reverting to the older version once copied. It's the only thing I can think to do, and it's based on little more than guesswork. None of this seems logical in the first place though, so maybe we'll be lucky. Hope it works!

 

[shtove]

Google about a bit. If you add in forum to the key words of your search you often come across someone with exactly the same problem and a list of solutions.

 

[melon]

Sorry I can't be of more technical help (this is due to my utter frustration with Vista) but I have realised the one way to fix everyone's problems with Vista. I do this for all my family and friends.

f*** VISTA OFF AND INSTALL XP PRO SP2!!!

It's the only way my friend.

 

[dullonien]

Or the Beta version of Windows 7, which is the way Vista should have been, not much I can complain about really after a month or so of use, which is astonishing considering it's still a year or so away from hitting the shelves!

 

[Fa'atau82]

Ok, i have some update on my vista issue.

I think that basically Vista only saves copied in files, and by not copying them in you get some problems.

For example, i have a file called 123.fsh that won't copy out of the folder it was edited in. If i rename it to 123x.fsh both the corporeal and shadow files will appear in the programs browser. I open the file and see that the renamed copy (the shadow copy) is the correct one. So then i delete the 123.fsh and rename 123z.fsh to 123.fsh.

Then, i cannot find the renamed 123.fsh anymore in Vista, only in the browser of the program that it opens with.. because it is not programmed to detect the shadow copy. So it's definitely vista's shadow copy that is causing the trouble.

In my situation, i need the shadow copy for some (it's correct) and not the original.. but when i try to find the file after renaming, it's still a shadow.. therefore i will have the same issue even if i copy out as XP users won't pick-up the shadow copy.

Damn you Windows Vista.

I can copy the file from the program browser and it is correct when i re-open it away from the folder. Now, if i add that file back, it will hopefully make another shadow file, and save the updated one.

This is probably just for gaming files which you have to import into, sort of like trojan editing.

 

[doniem]

Hey Fa'atau82,

I'm not sure if this will help in your situation but I was having a similar problem to yours a while back. Whenever I edited a file and saved it it was hit & miss as to whether or not it would stay that way or revert to its previous state next time i opened it.

I didn't necessarily find a direct solution but a workaround. I partitioned the hard drive, created a new partition, disabled volume shadow copy and system restore on the new partition & then copied all the files i use on a regular basis onto this new drive. I haven't had this particular problem since.

If you have a reasonably big hard drive its worth a go. Its fairly easy to do in vista also & it only takes about 10 minutes.

 

[Fa'atau82]

How to explain this..

Right, if i take an original game file and copy it into the gamefolder, the game will run it. There is also a shadow copy made of that file. If i then edit that file directly by importing into it, it saves the files content, but it does not update the save date in the folder and still reads the last saved date.. i.e it loads the shadow copy. If i copy all the files, it does not record the real and rolls back to the shadow copy. It seems that the shadow copy is what's loading, but if i rename it, it cannot be found.

I only know about these shadow files because of the program's browsers.. it detects them.