Multiple installs

[jgf]

Been a while since I was here ...been a while since I've had any questions, lol.

Last install was OpenTTD1.2.6, dated 2012. Just downloaded and installed OpenTTD-13.4 and fired it up, completely separate install folder, even on a different drive; after some complaints about missing grfs it loaded ...and shows all the save games in the old install. I wanted to play the new version default for a while, while keeping the old install intact. Can I not do that?

(It's insane how long I've been playing this. Still have my original TTDx in the box with the manual; purchased in '95 or '96.)

[skc]

You don't state explicitly, but by the sounds of it, you're running Windows.
Therefore, the installation process, which puts a LOT of information in to Windows' Registry, will be why you can't see two versions installed.

If you had chosen not to install the newest version and instead downloaded one of the "Zip archive" versions, you would be able to directly run that without impacting the 1.2.6 installation.

[Eddi]

lots of misinformation in the above post.

there are two parts of the game, the installation itself, and the user data (config file, savegames, downloaded GRFs). the first part is put in the installation directory, while the second part is put in your personal directory, and is shared between all installations by default.

you can make an installation self-contained by creating an empty "openttd.cfg" file at the new install location (pitfall: this location should be writable without admin privileges, so you should not do this inside the "programs" folder in windows)

or you can launch the game with the "-c <filename>" command line option to specify a custom config file. all other files (savegames, downloads) will be relative to this config file location.

[jgf]

Thanks. I used the zip download. None of my software, especially games, is in any "Program Files" folder. My old install is in a "Misc_Games" folder on a partition of the primary drive, the new install is in an "OpenTTD-13" folder on a partition of the secondary drive. When I saw the new install reading the old files i shut it down, lest something get corrupted (a dozen or so added grfs in the old one). System is Win7, UAC and DEP disabled.

[kamnet]

Nothing will get corrupted. When you first launch the game, even if put in different directories, if it doesn't detect a global directory for common files like NewGRFs, user-configured settings, etc then it will create one and put things there. Subsequent installations, even in separate directories, will all look for and use these shared directories.

In the extremely unlikely scenario that openttd.cfg becomes corrupted, closing the game, deleting the file and starting up the game again will create a fresh file with the defaults. As noted, if you put an empty plain text file named "openttd.cfg" in the same directory where the game is, then it will only use the directory paths locally to the install rather than globally.

[jfs]

Check in your Documents folder if there isn't an OpenTTD subfolder there, containing your config files, saved games, and so on.

I sure hope you aren't planning on ever connecting that computer to the internet.

[jgf]

Check in your Documents folder if there isn't an OpenTTD subfolder there, containing your config files, saved games, and so on.

I sure hope you aren't planning on ever connecting that computer to the internet.

There is an OpenTTD folder in Documents, has numerous cfg files in the root, saves in the Save folder, and numerous empty folders.

This system has averaged 4-5 hours a day online for ten years, through Vista and Win7. DEP is great in theory but useless in the real world, often blocking valid software from running then requiring little short of an act of god to whitelist that software; UAC is a royal PITA from the start, requiring endless prompts to accomplish the simplest of tasks. Both were disabled the first week I had this computer. Common sense, knowledge of what is "normal" on the system, and good backups are the best defense against malware.

[jgf]

So if I have a blank Openttd.cfg in the root of each install I could have several installs, each with their own discrete mods and saves, and no interaction between them?

[jfs]

Yes that's how it's intended to work. You should be able to simply copy the contents of the Documents\OpenTTD\ folder to each install and that way "split" them from there.
Note that if you started and then quit OpenTTD 13 normally then it will already have modified the config files, including splitting some settings into new files that didn't exist back then. You'll probably have to re-set some settings for the old version. However, GRFs, saved games and so on will be untouched.