Background download increased (WoW 3.0)

[Mavfin]

So if you're running the download manually, size has increased from 821 MB to 1.17 GB. If you haven't run the background downloader at all yet, you might want to get started, unless you want to get it all on patch day...

[LochnarITB]

So if you're running the download manually, size has increased from 821 MB to 1.17 GB. If you haven't run the background downloader at all yet, you might want to get started, unless you want to get it all on patch day...

There were actually 2 chunks in there. One last week went from .8 to 1.11 (1.13?) and then a smaller chunk yesterday took it to 1.17 <strike>yesterday</strike>. Just noted because folks that use the launcher should have seen 3 downloads now, so they shouldn't think theirs is somehow screwed up.

[NiteFox]

I haven't been running the downloader, thanks for reminding me.

And now I've got 1.57GB to download, the difference likely due to different localisations across Europe.

Stinky Americans. You get smaller downloads and releases a day earlier. Feh. At least we got all the world firsts that matter:P

[Mavfin]

Just to clarify, mine works fine in auto mode, but I end up running mine sort of manually, because if I set it to run after I log out of WoW, I forget about it and shut down when I go to bed, so it doesn't run. I just occasionally make sure I leave the computer on and let it download.

[swirly]

I'm in the situation of not having enough space on the drive that WoW is installed on to download the patch. Now this also means I won't have enough space to install it, but in order to put off uninstalling things till absolutely the last minute; I have figured out how to make it download to another drive. In case others need to do this as well here is how I am doing it.

You need to copy BackgroundDownloader.exe and Wow.exe to where you want it to download. If you just have those files then it will download an update to 3.0.2 for classic WoW which is about 2.5G in size. Of course most of us are running TBC and so don't want the classic update. If you create a Data folder and make a file called expansion.MPQ in it the downloader will then download the update to 3.0.2 for TBC which is 1.17G in size. It is a stopgap measure to needing to find the space, but I figure it could be useful knowledge.

[Kevin]

Can someone tell me the format of how the patch is stored on the PC?

It's not in the standard version#-to-version#.exe that it normally is.

Since I tend to only download it on one system then copy the patch to the other system over the network I only downloaded it on Treesh's machine this time and I'm not seeing where it put the temp files.


EDIT: Looks like it made an Updates subdirectory that has the data. I'll get that copied over and verify real quick.

EDIT 2: Yep that got it.

[Kevin]

I'm in the situation of not having enough space on the drive that WoW is installed on to download the patch. Now this also means I won't have enough space to install it, but in order to put off uninstalling things till absolutely the last minute; I have figured out how to make it download to another drive. In case others need to do this as well here is how I am doing it.

You need to copy BackgroundDownloader.exe and Wow.exe to where you want it to download. If you just have those files then it will download an update to 3.0.2 for classic WoW which is about 2.5G in size. Of course most of us are running TBC and so don't want the classic update. If you create a Data folder and make a file called expansion.MPQ in it the downloader will then download the update to 3.0.2 for TBC which is 1.17G in size. It is a stopgap measure to needing to find the space, but I figure it could be useful knowledge.

Another note for you real quick. It requires 6.5 gig of space to perform the install.

[swirly]

Another note for you real quick. It requires 6.5 gig of space to perform the install.

Yeah I noticed. Quite a pain in the butt, but if I'm going to have any shot at running the expansion; I need to make room anyway. So I deleted my storage partition (all stuff I can get back, stuff I can't was moved to the external) and repartitioned my drives using Partition Magic. That along with some uninstalling I did before hand takes my C drive from 400M free to 10G free. Basically I chopped my storage partition in half which means I'll have to be much more careful with what music or such that I put back on it since I just won't have the space for everything.

In other news, My brother recently dropped a P3 700Mhz Compaq that doesn't work on me. I have no clue how or why it died or basically anything about it. So while my comp was repartitioning I decided to fiddle with it some. I'm not optimisitc about getting it running (don't really need to anyway, but it never hurts to have a spare comp), but it seems to have a 20G and a 10G harddrive in it. So I'm slightly hopeful that they are still functional and that maybe I can throw one in my machine for some space. Something to play with anyway if I get bored sometime. The update is installing currently on my machine so what I can do beyond taking that machine apart is limited since it takes a working machine to test things.

Anyway, I should have enough space to get things up and running for now either way.

[--Pete]

Hi,

Since I tend to only download it on one system then copy the patch to the other system over the network I only downloaded it on Treesh's machine this time and I'm not seeing where it put the temp files.

Sort of a thread hijack. Do you run two full copies of WoW, or do you put some stuff on one machine and then just point to it from the other.

The reason I'm asking is that Magi and I have ended up with three (soon to be four) copies of WoW (but only two accounts:)). That makes keeping everything updated a chore. I have a bunch of older computers that would do fine as file servers, and I was thinking about putting the WoW WTF and AddOns on the server and accessing them using shortcuts. I don't know about the remaining files. So, if you (or anyone) has done or tried something similar, I'd like to know how it worked, what the gotchas are, etc.

--Pete

[Mavfin]

Hi,
Sort of a thread hijack. Do you run two full copies of WoW, or do you put some stuff on one machine and then just point to it from the other.

The reason I'm asking is that Magi and I have ended up with three (soon to be four) copies of WoW (but only two accounts:)). That makes keeping everything updated a chore. I have a bunch of older computers that would do fine as file servers, and I was thinking about putting the WoW WTF and AddOns on the server and accessing them using shortcuts. I don't know about the remaining files. So, if you (or anyone) has done or tried something similar, I'd like to know how it worked, what the gotchas are, etc.

--Pete

I wouldn't share the WTF folders, as they get written to during gameplay, but I would think you could share the addon folders.

[Ruvanal]

Hi,
Sort of a thread hijack. Do you run two full copies of WoW, or do you put some stuff on one machine and then just point to it from the other.

The reason I'm asking is that Magi and I have ended up with three (soon to be four) copies of WoW (but only two accounts:)). That makes keeping everything updated a chore. I have a bunch of older computers that would do fine as file servers, and I was thinking about putting the WoW WTF and AddOns on the server and accessing them using shortcuts. I don't know about the remaining files. So, if you (or anyone) has done or tried something similar, I'd like to know how it worked, what the gotchas are, etc.

--Pete

I have been running two accounts of WoW on one machine and alt-tabbing between them when it is necessary to have both up at once. Both have run fine for me with only one install of the game on the machine.

As to the WTF folder, only the config.wtf is shared between the accounts. Each account will get a sub folder of its own to store any other variables in.

[Kevin]

Hi,
Sort of a thread hijack. Do you run two full copies of WoW, or do you put some stuff on one machine and then just point to it from the other.

The reason I'm asking is that Magi and I have ended up with three (soon to be four) copies of WoW (but only two accounts:)). That makes keeping everything updated a chore. I have a bunch of older computers that would do fine as file servers, and I was thinking about putting the WoW WTF and AddOns on the server and accessing them using shortcuts. I don't know about the remaining files. So, if you (or anyone) has done or tried something similar, I'd like to know how it worked, what the gotchas are, etc.

--Pete

It's 2 separate installs but of course either account can play on either machine, but they are configured differently anyway. If I'm playing on her account I'm using a different set of add-ons than what she prefers, different screen layout, etc, so I don't actually want to share that info. Same for her if she is using my machine. Different keybindings as well (that was one of the ways to get around the different bar layouts. The hotkeys for her account on my machine is stored seperately than the hotkeys for my account on my machine so I could just remap everything on her bars to what I wanted with the default UI without moving buttons. Sure the numbers might look like I count 5 9 1 3 7 4 2, whatever but it didn't matter, what I wanted on the 1 key was there, what I wanted on the r, f, t, g, q, a, etc keys got set there, it just took more time to get the mapping goin.

I've got a feeling you could get it to share quite a bit of the install data though, it might be as simple as a network install from both systems to the same location, because like Ruv said I've run both accounts on my machine at the same time, can't really do anything but trade and enchant and stuff like that because of my lower system specs, but it's not an issue. If you have enough system memory the drive reads across the network shouldn't be too harsh on performance anyway.

[Kevin]

Anyway, I should have enough space to get things up and running for now either way.

I debated doing the same thing (I love good old Partition Magic). But instead I just uninstalled the WotLK beta. I never have time to play it anymore anyway, and it was sucking up 16 gig at last check. Besides at this point I'm not sure they will be listening to beta testers anymore anyway.

[Concillian]

Hi,
Sort of a thread hijack. Do you run two full copies of WoW, or do you put some stuff on one machine and then just point to it from the other.

The reason I'm asking is that Magi and I have ended up with three (soon to be four) copies of WoW (but only two accounts:)). That makes keeping everything updated a chore. I have a bunch of older computers that would do fine as file servers, and I was thinking about putting the WoW WTF and AddOns on the server and accessing them using shortcuts. I don't know about the remaining files. So, if you (or anyone) has done or tried something similar, I'd like to know how it worked, what the gotchas are, etc.

--Pete

I used to run wow from my file server, but even over gigabit it just was rather noticeably slower than local install. Now I just periodically copy my wow folder to the file server. Though I have no shortage of storage. Being able to use thte file server for MP3, video, etc... means that the client machines can be reasonably lean in terms of storage. I'm finally getting rid of my old 15k SCSI drives (yeah, 15k, but noisy as hell and 5 or 6 years old now, so they aren't as nice as they sound). But I haven't felt squeezed on either machine, and these are only 70 gig drives (though each machine has a second drive for swap, but these are pretty much not useed for anything else.

File server was running a RAID 5 stripe across 4 drives that could stream across the network at essentially full gigabit speeds when I did initial testing (something I couldn't achieve drive to drive on a client machine). I presume that the game issues were due to some latency issues or something? I don't know for sure, just know my plan didn't work out as I had wanted. Due to not being able to run apps from the file server as I had wanted, I'm switching to a mirror on daily backups with no RAID, as performance is no longer a requirement, and I'd rather have the extra data security.