Computer died, must reinstall about 2,000 Daz items, HELP!
Mike Hunt
Posts: 71
Is there an uncomplicated way that a non-geek can reinstall about 1,700 Daz purchases in a 'batch process'?. If you have any ideas, thanks, but please, please, don't talk over my head. I have been doing CGI since Poser 3 but I do not understand many of the terms in these forums. Please keep any advice understandable and without strange acronyms. Thanking you in advance! 
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Comments
Use DIM.
If the old hard drive is not dead, then there is no need to actually reinstall the content. Just plug the old drive in to the new computer (or drop it in an external drive case) and point the fresh installs to it for the content.
"Use DIM" but how? It only gives me the option to uninstall.
MJC 1016, I have windows 8.1. As part of a desperate effort to recover from a crash I did a restore, it wiped out my Daz files compleatly.
Any more ideas anyone? Thanks.
Uninstall using DIM (don't worry that the files aren't there anymore), then reinstall with DIM.
Frankly, that sounds pretty scary. If you are incorrect my friend, there goes my entire Daz collection of over a thousand purchases.
Anything that you have purchased from DAZ 3D is still available in your Product Library, and DIM can download it for you whenever you want, nothing is lost.
What do you currently have? If you have the option to uninstall presumably you have at least something from the old system - if only the Public Documents folder with the manifests that tell DIM what it has installed. If you are lucky presumably you also have the downloaded zips in that case, which saves waiting for them to download from DAZ.
Windows 8.1, didn't upgrade to windows 10 yet, was on vacation. PC with16 gig RAM 4 gig Raedon card. But no, all the files are gone. It also wiped out my Adobe Photoshop and a host of other things. Thanks for the idea though Richard.
For future; after you've downloaded; copy the dl folder to a backup device; once installed, copy the Daz folder that contains the download information, not the downloads themselves, then also copy the Daz 3D folder from ...Users\<YOUR-NAME>\AppData\Roaming.
Keeping these somewhere safe saves a lot of hastle, as after re-installing the daz software you can copy them across and it should find everything and install addition downloads done since you made the backups, presuming you've copies those dl too. You might have to ensurethat Daz is pointing to the correct places if you change them.
I think I will try the uninstall today with a few unimportant items and verify that I can recover them. Thanks for the help my friends, feel free to chime in if you have any other ideas.
BTW, anyone have any opinion on Windows 10? The upgrade is free, should I? I use this machine only for CGI, and CGI postwork, nothing else.
Regular backups are important, after you get this sorted, it would be wise to start so that if this happens again, the danger of loss will be limited only to anything done since the last backup. If you have any non-DAZ products, you may not have been able to re-download them like you can with DAZ products, and you never know when policies might change. You should also back up your applications, since DAZ updates those to the latest versions as they come out and you might loose access to an older version that you might need someday. And you might have other things, such as texture templates from other sources, or manually fixed products, which DAZ won't have downloads for. Also, you probably want to back up all your data files that are created as you work with scenes (although I THINK it is possible to recreate those if you are desparate; haven't actually tried myself), and obviously your own art which DAZ doesn't back up.
Which leads into the Windows 10 discussion, looks like the biggest issue there might be that you are forced to take updates as they come, which has the potential to break things. There may be workarounds, I haven't followed it very closely. There are also a host of privacy-related things that one might want to configure on a new installation. Here's a thread to follow if interested to help you decide one way or the other: http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/60276/windows-10-it-s-heeerrre-and-it-s-free-for-some#latest
Gosh, now I'm more confused than ever. I just noticed that a lot, perhaps all of my Daz items are, in fact, installed. But after I reinstalled Daz following the total crash they are in different places than they were. My "Products" tab under the Content Library is empty though. Is there some way I can repopulate the 'Products' tab? I use it a lot because I have so much Daz stuff. Perhaps I don't have to do the big uninstall reinstall, hmmmm.
Yes - but first check that the CMS is running. Open Task Manager and look to see if, when DS is open, you have several entries for postgreSQL in the processes tab; if not look to see if DAZ Contnt Management Service is in the Services tab. Assuming the CMS is running open the Content Library pane option menu - the lined button in the top corner, or right-click the tab - and select Content DB Maintenance, then check Re-import metadata, then click Accept.
Problem solved my friends. Thank you for the advice, my 'products' are populated, everything seems normal. I don't know how this works, but when I downloaded a copy of DAZ 4.8 pro all my previous stuff was on it. The 'my products' tab populated after I did a "search for content on hard drives'.
The Daz community and these blogs arre really nice. Makes the sport more enjoyable!
Short of a drive failure that takes out the content drive/location, there is very little that will affect the content installed on your system. The program and content are installed to different locations, one reason being that's the way Windows wants it done...another is because it's a safety measure to protect the content install.
I don't keep my Library in my Documents folder. I don't dare. Between Poser and Studion stuff across just about every store that's ever existed, I have well over 100GB in installers alone.