Downsides to not using Install Manager (aside from speed)
As a rule of thumb I never use Install Managers. I don't like having an entity that handles downloading and installing all at once (nothing personal DAZ, you understand). However, some of the new products seem to just come with Manifest folders and no installer.
I haven't purchased anything in a while, but a friend of mine I got into 3D just bought the v6 bundle and the Club Dress (I think) came with only a Manifest.dsx(?) and Content folder. She said that she was able to just drop the contents of the Content folder into her libraries, but that does not allow it to show up in smart content.
So I ask; is my friend wrong, or are individual installers being phased out and, eventually, I'll need to adopt the manager?
Comments
The rumour is that installers are being phased out, but I still see new content with installers so only Daz knows the truth of that. Other than that there's no other real advantage other than being able to queue your downloads and install while you browse. The site can 'talk' with the DIM to download and install the files straight from the site after purchase, so it definitely has its advantages.
DIM automatically updates the Smart Content as well, though this threw me for a loop the first time since I didn't get the customary 'Add this metadata' window I was so used to before that.
Your friend is not wrong about the Smart Content issue when bypassing the DIM. The metadata is (usually) included in the zip file. It gets installed but not activated when you copy the zip file folders to My Library. You can run Content DB Maintenance to activate the metadata and get your new product to show up in Smart Content. That is what I've been doing, and it works well.
The install manager can be set to down load only, no install. You can also download the files manually from your account under "Product Library"
Greetings,
The major drawback, IMO, of not using DIM is that you don't get notified of updates otherwise. And updates happen surprisingly frequently!
(Well, I also remember the Bad Times pre-DIM when I'd try to run basically a dozen installers, waiting for one to finish before starting the next, because if you didn't they'd get entangled... It took a LOT longer to install content, back then. :( )
-- Morgan
Installers are being phased out (read here: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/20834_4/) and we are going to just zips where we can. Its after May 15th, but installers have been slowly disappearing on the website and as of very recently, no new products should be having them unless it is a special case scenario.
You don't have to use Install Manager though as all downloads are still available through the manual download option of install manager that you can download the zip, unzip and manually move the files where you want, and then manually import the meta data if you like to use the meta data.
If you want to use Install Manager you can do as much as download and install entire orders with two clicks to as little as just save time by just quickly selecting what you want to download and let it do that for you and then manually install it (so it basically just becomes a download manager for you with resume support in the near future). And if you don't want to use Install Manager because of file download masochism (I kid), you don't have to and can still get everything manually through the website.
'...however, the major drawback of using the DIM in a highly customised runtime structure means things don;t go where they are supposed to.
'...however, the major drawback of using the DIM in a highly customised runtime structure means things don;t go where they are supposed to.But that you did yourself, what stops you from installing and then customizing as you install? The files will go into all the default Poser folders IF they even have poser files. I see nothing about a DAZ Zip different than a Rendo one.
...except there 's no readme which is essential, especially where Genesis related content and plugins are concerned.
As I have mentioned many times, I had no issues with zips from Rendo, RDNA, Xurge, etc as they always included nicely detailed instructions as where everything should go. Heck even freebie creators document their stuff. What is is it with Daz being so stubborn about documenting their products?
The DIM doesn't work for me, therefore I have to do manual installs. With items that are straight .dpc, I can follow the normal Runtime pattern. With content that is also Genesis/Daz Specific, it is a lot more confusing without having a road map.
What is Daz's fraggin' problem with giving us information we need? It's not rocket surgery you know.
I'd rather go back to the Bitrock installers. Heck I still love the old Daz installers as they were fast and never had an issue with putting things in the right place. Yeah, you had to point them to the Daz/Content folder each time, but so what? A lot simpler than dealing with all this bleedn' DIM horsehockey.
I believe they expect you to hit the little i button next to each item on the install manager which opens a page with that info in your browser. As for me with the bitrock installers ... hate hate hate hate them. I am the type that prefers to install into a temporary folder so i can sort stuff the way I want. Some bitrock installers however would not let me do that, they required installing into the base runtime, especially if genesis related and I hated that.
I used to hate the installers too, until I started dealing with the DAZ zips.
It takes me longer to organize my files when I use the DAZ zips vs the installers. So ... needless to say, if there is an installer, I still use that instead of the zip.
How do customers who do not use D3DIM get to the ReadMe.
I believe they expect you to hit the little i button next to each item on the install manager which opens a page with that info in your browser. As for me with the bitrock installers ... hate hate hate hate them. I am the type that prefers to install into a temporary folder so i can sort stuff the way I want. Some bitrock installers however would not let me do that, they required installing into the base runtime, especially if genesis related and I hated that.
Help / Documentation Center Product Read Me's from the left hand menu.
LOL, I have never looked at any of the readmes.
Just want to say thanks to DAZ for having the zip option as i have no need, desire, or intention of ever using the DIM!
That all said, I just use DIM for downloading as it's considerably faster. I always manually installed, and continue to do so.
I believe they expect you to hit the little i button next to each item on the install manager which opens a page with that info in your browser. As for me with the bitrock installers ... hate hate hate hate them. I am the type that prefers to install into a temporary folder so i can sort stuff the way I want. Some bitrock installers however would not let me do that, they required installing into the base runtime, especially if genesis related and I hated that.
...the DIM doesn't work for me. I've wasted enough time with it and decided it better to move on and perform all my installs manually without it. So what is being said to me is if I don't use it I'm basically out of luck and have to keep playing guessing games.
I was afraid something like this was going to occur.
After some bad early experiences, I have always avoided installing (and usually even buying) the older items that only had zip download formats. This is because, with manual installation, some things always ended up in places where they couldn't be found or used. For example, I didn't manage to get Aiko's Saloon Girl on my system working correctly until I manually deleted every trace of the old installation-from-zip and re-installed using DIM which, lucky stars, could handle these old zips.
But now. for even the newest items, the choice is either DIM or zips. I use DIM, but as far as I can tell, one can't re-install using DIM (should that become necessary) and I would want to be able to re-install when the need arises. That's why I'm downloading all the zips as backups.
The thing is, the old files using zips had readmes that explained installation (which, as I have said, were a lot easier to read than to follow), but as far as I can see, there are no complete and systematic official instructions on how to install from these new zips. (Their "readmes" are only product information pages, useful for a lot of things but not for installation.) Various letters in the Forum give installation advice about new zips, but in a non-systematic way, I don't see any official or concise readme files that cover the subject in all aspects. Am I wrong? Is there a centralized Help file on the subject.? Or, is the information unnecessary because the method of installing exactly the same as with the old zip files? Knowing that much for sure would be helpful. I could wait before making this inquiry until I needed to re-install something, but since I am here on the right thread for this important subject, I thought I'd go ahead and ask now.
You can reinstall with DIM. First, if you uncheck "Delete installers after installing" the zips will not be deleted. If you need to reinstall, just uninstall it using DIM and it will reappear in the Ready to Download or Ready to Install tab.
To install manually, I extract to a temporary folder, then take everything UNDER the folder named "Content" and merge it with what's under my real content folder ("My Library" or "My DAZ 3D Library" are the defaults). The important thing is not to get a folder called "Content" inside your real content folder.
Man, that creates a big mess. There apparently are some older products that have zip files but are not in the DIM system. I made this mistake. Not good!
Also keep an eye out for products that have multiple installers. You would think you would be able to unzip both to the same folder, but for some products they will install into two different levels of folders, giving you the above-mentioned nested folder problem even though it might look at first glance like things are ok because you are only looking at half of it in the expected place. In this case I delete everything I just installed, pick one at random and install it to an empty folder, figure out which installer is going too deep, delete again, install that one first, move it up, then install the other, then move the final combined product installer up a folder the way you normally would.
...yeah when I set up my new workstation I found the DIM totally useless for reinstalling from my archives and had to do all the installs manually (took several weeks) as I was not about to re-download 5+ years worth of content purchases ,just so it had everything in it's database.
Fortunately pretty much everything (save for the content from Rendo, RDNA, Xurge and my vast freebie collection) still had the original .exe installers.
On top of that, as I have mentioned, it continues to be rather flaky for me and has resulted in more frustration than it is worth.
I will no install and use the DIM until/unless it's changed so that it does not use thee Public Documents folder. It's unnecessary, quite wrong for it to insist on it (option to use it, fine; insisting on using it, absolutely wrong).
Bit while DAZ say we can get along fine doing things manually if we wish, they have, within the last couple of weeks, made it impossible to fully do so.
How? BY REMOVING THE VERSION NUMBER FROM THE PRODUCT IN OUR PRODUCT LIBRARY. The installers had the version numbers in the file names, but the DIM downloads do not, so we non-DIM users have NO WAY to tell if there's been an update.
This is just pathetic. When a product I have bought at renderosity is updated, (I) I get an EMAIL, and (ii) it shows up marked as updated, and with the date of the update in my item list at Renderosity. DAZ USED to email us about updates ... but then they stopped. And DAZ used to show the version numbers in our product download pages ... but now they have stopped. Utterly, utterly pathetic. And I presume a really petty attempt to force us to use the DIM.
Well, I will not use the DIM until it is standards and security compliant and stops insisting on using my Public folders.
And if nothing is done - like simply putting version numbers back in the product lists - to enable me to manage my DAZ purchases without the DIM, I'll just have to stop making any more DAZ purchases.