Windows 7 Symlinks and Multiboxing

[jal]

Example:

Multiboxing five World of Warcraft accounts. Pwnboxer configured with the game paths below.

d:\wow1
d:\wow2
d:\wow3
d:\wow4
d:\wow5

Addons, traditionally, have to be managed for each game path and are not shared between game paths.



Windows Vista / Windows 7 Symlinks:

Available only since Windows Vista is a popular Unix filesystem feature called Symbolic Links on NTFS filesystems.
See Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Sharing your Interface Directory across all Game Paths:

d:\wow1\Interface
d:\wow2\Interface
d:\wow3\Interface
d:\wow4\Interface
d:\wow5\Interface

Step 1

Run "cmd.exe" as Administrator.

Step 2

Rename the Interface directory for all but one of the game paths.

c:> ren d:\wow2\Interface Interface.backup
c:> ren d:\wow3\Interface Interface.backup
c:> ren d:\wow4\Interface Interface.backup
c:> ren d:\wow5\Interface Interface.backup

d:\wow1\Interface
d:\wow2\Interface.backup
d:\wow3\Interface.backup
d:\wow4\Interface.backup
d:\wow5\Interface.backup

Step 3

Create the symbolic directory links from each of the "slave" game paths to the "master" game path with the central Interface directory.

c:\> mklink /D d:\wow2\Interface ..\wow1\Interface
c:\> mklink /D d:\wow3\Interface ..\wow1\Interface
c:\> mklink /D d:\wow4\Interface ..\wow1\Interface
c:\> mklink /D d:\wow5\Interface ..\wow1\Interface

d:\wow1\Interface
d:\wow2\Interface [..\wow1\Interface]
d:\wow3\Interface [..\wow1\Interface]
d:\wow4\Interface [..\wow1\Interface]
d:\wow5\Interface [..\wow1\Interface]

In Windows explorer, the symbolic directory links will look like shortcuts.


That's it. Start up Pwnboxer and startup all your WoW game instances. All will now see and share one Interface/Addons directory. Much easier to update and less disk space needed.

The next directory to consider sharing is the "Data" directory because it contains the bulk of the (large) WoW game files. But special care will need to be taken when patching the games.

[Ualaa]

The Cache, Data and Interface folders are the prime candidates for symbolic links.

I'd recommend one parent directory, which you don't play with.

And then multiple symbolic links, one for each version of warcraft in which you want different levels of graphics/sound options.
A five-boxer might have a low-graphics version for boxing and a high graphics version for solo play.

On patch day, break the links.
Patch the parent directory, which is the full install.
Copy the wow.exe file from the parent directory to each copy.
And then redo the links.

[jal]

I'm sceptical about the Cache directory. If it's a dynamic cache directory written to differently by each wow client, then this could be dangerous as clients would overwrite their cached entries.

Not sure why a copy of the wow.exe binary would make a difference. Might as well symlink that executable as well if it's identical between clients.

But thanks, you've given me a few good ideas. I really just want to save the 5x16GB of disk space on my SSD from the Data directory and not have to update addons across 5 instances of the game.

[Ualaa]

On patch day, the wow.exe in the folder which is patched, runs the game fine. But the other wow.exe's which were not patched will not start the game.. maybe half of the time.

The Cache being symlinked is probably ok, because you can run multiple copies of warcraft from a single folder without errors. It is quite likely you could also then symlink to a single cache with similar results.

The largest gain of symbolic links, is saving space. Data, Cache and Interface are all shared, but WTF (which takes little space) can be different for each account. While the wow install might be 12gb or so, each symlink copy is under 20mb.

[TheMuffinMan]

I have a question because I do not know a lot about symlinks.... but why do you need them?

Why not just run all 5 or howevermany WoW's from the same folder?

I have 2 WoW folders... 1 for my multiboxing team and 1 for soloing because they use different sets of addons and it keeps it easy for me...

What benefit of Symlinks am I missing?

[Ualaa]

If you want different options for each account.

For example, the main has options at 50%, while the slaves have options at 10-20%. And maybe, your one-box has options at 100%. Or whatever.

A single install is in the 12GB range.
A symlink from the one install is 15-20MB in addition to the main install.
Each of the symlink copies can have a completely different set of options, including window positions, addon positions, settings, video/sound options etc.

You could go with:
- One-box configuration (high graphics).
- Arena configuration (with Focus, Focus Target etc).
- Five-box leader configuration (medium graphics).
- Five-box slave configuration (low graphics).

At 15-20MB, basically for the WTF folder, a lot of options is fine.

[TheMuffinMan]

Originally Posted by Ualaa

If you want different options for each account.

For example, the main has options at 50%, while the slaves have options at 10-20%. And maybe, your one-box has options at 100%. Or whatever.

A single install is in the 12GB range.
A symlink from the one install is 15-20MB in addition to the main install.
Each of the symlink copies can have a completely different set of options, including window positions, addon positions, settings, video/sound options etc.

You could go with:
- One-box configuration (high graphics).
- Arena configuration (with Focus, Focus Target etc).
- Five-box leader configuration (medium graphics).
- Five-box slave configuration (low graphics).

At 15-20MB, basically for the WTF folder, a lot of options is fine.

Hmm...

Well Pwnboxer gives me unique graphics settings and sound settings for each window (by messing with the config.wtf as it creates each game window)

Pwnboxer also sets up my window positions for me.

Addon positions are the same (on purpose) across all toons as are their settings.

My 2nd WoW install is only due to my extremely different set of addons I use for solo play.... and with 1.5TB HD space, the extra 16GB or so isn't so much of a worry.

I guess symlinks aren't something I need to worry about then

Thanks for the info Ualaa! I appreciate it.

[Tim]

I myself don't really see any need with Symlinks. It isn't that they aren't useful, it is that they aren't useful anymore.

3-4 years ago when people were multiboxing WoW on their 200G drives, symlinking would save them a ton of space, so it really was very useful.

But these days with huge multi-terabyte drives, and even cheap solid state having tons of space, it really isn't as useful, and for me, not even close to the hassle of setting it up.

Especially when you consider that a multiboxer of 5x WoWs should prolly have a dedicated (if not small) hard drive or hard drive partition just for WoW. Not for disk space reasons, but for IO, IOPS que, and overall combat against fragmentation.

I'm with Muffin in that I have another set of WoW directories for things like addons, managing WoW's cache, but also for things like concurrency issues that may arise (internal to WoW).

[dualboxinfun]

I think the point he was sharing is that he is using the symbolic link to update one shared addon folder vs. having to manage 5 seperate addon folders.

Another good use of symbolic links outside this thread topic is moving certain game folders to faster media such as an SSD or a RAM drive. When I played Vanguard it was a major resource hog and stuttered like crazy and a lot of research proved it was many reads/writes to the HDD and once we used symbolic links for certain game folders pointing to a RAM drive the stuttering was destroyed. Of course now you can get an SSD and load all of WoW on it and all I've said is a moot point.

Thanks for sharing this idea.

[Ualaa]

Of the boxing programs with a major share of the market, IS Boxer and Pwnboxer get you settings on a per character basis. Keyclone does not. And I'm not sure on whether Game Commander Pro or HotKeyNet does this or not.

So SymLinks might be a useful feature for some, but if your software virtualizes or otherwise saves variable settings on a per account or per character basis, there is no gain.