Putting DAZ 3D On External Hard Drive Help

RCDeschene

I’m trying to install DAZ in its entirety on an external hard drive. I made perfectly sure to eliminate every possible file regarding “DAZ 3D” from my system (with personal content backed up, of course). However, every time I attempt to direct all instillation processes to my external hard drive, “DAZ 3D” folders relating to both the Content and Instillation Managers still appear in their default directories.

Why does this happen and how can I correct this, if possible? I don’t want anything DAZ 3D related on my system that involves any of my personal content or configurations. It's taking up too much space on my laptop and I would like to easily access my DAZ 3D experience on the go.

Chohole

I don't know about DS, but when I installed Bryce, Poser and PS on my external I created a folder called "Bryce" etc and directed the installer to that folder.

Whispering:- DAZ 3D is the Company Daz Studio is the program

Szark

Most likely you have some Registry entries left over but as chohole said you can manually direct the installation to where you want it to go. This is true of DS too.

There are a number of registry cleaners out there for free, run one prior to installing DS to remove all traces and then try again.

StratDragon

I saved myself a big headache by keeping DS on my system drive and moving all my data files, runtime, content etc to secondary drive.
the core application install is a few hundred megabytes if that, it's the runtime that is massive.
Depending on the speed of the external drive you could see performance drops, I have mine on a 2nd 3GB/s SATA with my swap disk on my 1st along with the Studio application so it actually navigates the runtime and content pretty quickly. A 7200 RPM SATA 3GB/s is accessing data on average 5x faster than a SATA 7200 RPM drive in a USB 2.0 enclosure.

Daikatana

StratDragon said:

I saved myself a big headache by keeping DS on my system drive and moving all my data files, runtime, content etc to secondary drive.
the core application install is a few hundred megabytes if that, it's the runtime that is massive.

I did this as well. I repurposed an old SATA hard drive by putting it in an external drive enclosure that uses a USB3 connection. It performs just like having a second internal drive for nothing but my content files.

reelyor

Are you using Install Manager to do the new install?
Did you change the installation folders inside Install manager?

Did you uninstall the old versions of your original software using DAZ Studio uninstallers?
CAUTION: Be sure to save the Data folder out of your old Content directory to somewhere safe so you do not lose all your scenes and character information.

There are many variables here.

I have had my Daz Studio installed entirely to external harddrives since version 3, including the program files.
Cholhole's suggestion to start by creating a folder on your exernal drive named" DAZ", or whatever, and setting the Install manager to install your files there. Start by installing your program files (64 bit or 32 bit) after telling install manager to install them in x:\DAZ. Then check to see if a content directory was created inside (My Library) or whatever. Then set Install Manager to copy your content there.

prixat

Installation will always hook into the system, that's why its called installation. :-)

Sounds like you actually want to create a self contained install that can even be carried on a USB stick.

That process is called "making a portable app."

Try something like Cameyo that intercepts those hooks and libraries and puts everything it needs into a single package.
That package will be runnable on any similar PC without installation.

There's a bit of a performance hit and if you make major changes like an upgrade or a plugin then you will have to "re-portabalise".

I haven't tried it with Studio but other programs work OK.

Lissa_xyz

Symlinks.

There are some directories that are just hard coded into the app(s), which can't be avoided. Your best bet is to find those directories, move them, and create symlinks back to their original locations. It's a pain in the butt, but it will trick your system into thinking files that are on your external, are actually stored in their default locations when they're not (think of it like mirroring rather than a shortcut). I did that with my Bryce content, because it's hellbent on putting it in the same directory as the app (I install apps to E:, but keep my libraries on F:).