Moving presets from one computer to another...
polycounter lvl 18
Lets say that I wanted to copy all my pluggins, presets, filters, and user settings/defaults over from programs like Maya, 3D Studio Max, and Adobe Photoshop, and move them to a machine with a pure, fresh install of each. What directories would I have to copy, and move across to the fresh installs in order to have them available in the newly installed programs?
The reason I'm asking this is because this would seem a lot easier then rifling through all the years worth of pluggins, and filters I've downloaded, installing them on the new machine, and then tweaking the settings in each program to include the new pluggins, scripts, filters, and user preferances.
The reason I'm asking this is because this would seem a lot easier then rifling through all the years worth of pluggins, and filters I've downloaded, installing them on the new machine, and then tweaking the settings in each program to include the new pluggins, scripts, filters, and user preferances.
Replies
If that doesn't work... install a new copy of the software in another folder, then do a difference-compare between the two folders. Once I installed the clean copy, then used a down-n-dirty way to isolate what's different, but it's an involved process using DOS and a batch file. Let me know and I'll detail it.
Likewise, you'd probably wanna copy the "Plugins" and maybe "Scripts" folders across... maybe the Help too if you installed any more major plugins.
For Maya, all preferences (and scripts, I think) are stored in your User area of Windows (C:\documents and settings\profile name\local settings, I believe) although you might have to turn on showing Hidden Directories in windows explorer to see that folder. It should be in a fairly obvious folder name like "Maya6" or whatever. I'm not sure if Maya plugins are installed in the program directory or not, but scripts and preferences default to the local user data directory as described above.
With Photoshop, it has a similar thing to Maya, all the settings are stored in your documents and settings folder under your Windows login name, but it's under the "Application Data" folder, then look under Adobe... should all be there, or somewhere around there.
Plugins for Photoshop go in the main program directory though, so you'd have to get them out of the plugins folder there.
Bear in mind that some of this stuff may be linked to paths, file and folder names, so if you copy them to a new PC with different hard drive name or folder setup, some elements might not work.
@Eric - I was thinking that perhaps they'd have one, especially for CG people...since it would be a pain to re-install dozens of programs and presets everytime you overhaul a machine, or get a new one.