Saving Windlight Presets - which directory for sky vs. water?

Hi,

The SL Wiki with Torley's instructions show that Windlight presets for sky and water be saved to the following directories:

Windows XP:

* Skies - C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\SecondLife\user_settings\windlight\skies

* Water - C:\Program Files\SecondLife\app_settings\windlight\water

You will notice that they are different directories - skies is saved in Documents and Settings, instead of Program Files.

This is supposed to allow you to carry your sky settings through various viewer upgrades, though you have to reinstall water settings, apparently:

from the Wiki:" "skies" and "water" settings are saved to distinctly different locations due to a bug. See (VWR-12164[c]). This means that "skies" settings, if installed to the directories below, will persist through Second Life installs, while "water" settings will need to be reinstalled after each Viewer upgrade. "

My question is this: where am I supposed to save sky presets NOW? Is the Wiki info still current as of the most recent viewer? I ask because I have my sky presets currently saved the old way, in the Program Files\SecondLife\app_settings\windlight\skies, and they stayed with me through the last viewer upgrade.

Please help - I am confused! I want to add Torley's new sky and water setting version 3, but I don't know for sure where to put them! And if I am supposed to delete the old ones first, as he suggests (from the Wiki: "If you've installed previous versions of Torley's WindLight Settings, you should DELETE THEM ALL before installing Version 3. The filenames are different", I would be deleting them from the OLD location. The NEW location that he says to use is currently an empty folder.

I hope this makes sense!

Princess Ivory

It makes sense to delete Torley's old ones because the file names are different. That probably means you would have duplicate WL presets under two different names if you don't delete the old ones.

I don't think you lose the old presets from directories inside the Second Life folder. I have a bunch in there, and they haven't gone anywhere with the latest viewer. If you're paranoid about losing them, just copy the contents into another folder.

I did notice that if you create NEW presets they wind up in the application data folders.

I am using Windows XP. I currently have my Windlight presets for skies saved to:
C:\Program Files\SecondLife\app_settings\windlight\skies
They work fine, and carried forward into the latest viewer without a problem.

I am confused, as the directions in the SL Wiki say to save Windlight presets for skies to:
C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\SecondLife\user_settings\windlight\skies for Windows XP.

Should I move my Windlight sky presets? Where do I save new Windlight sky presets?

Am I making this clear enough, or is my question confusing? I'm not sure I'm explaining it clearly.

It is a matter of whether I should be using
C:\Program Files... OR C:\Documents and Settings...

Princess Ivory

Princess -

Not paying attention to the wiki, I save my presets to the following directories:

C:\Program Files\SecondLife\app_settings\Windlight\[skies OR water]

Now, I don't know as I have the latest version of the viewer - it's been a little while since I've been inworld.

If I have any new presets, I copy them in and overwrite the existing if necessary - as I don't change saved settings like Torley's.

Hope this helps!

MV

The point of moving the presets to %profile%\Application Data\... is so that you don't have to copy presets in again after upgrading the viewer.

The viewer saves presets in that location, now, and the original location's presets are just defaults. It will be less hassle in the long run if you do the same.

Thanks for your input, Argent. Let me restate this to make sure I understand what you are saying:

I should save all presets for Windlight skies to:
C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\SecondLife\user_settings\windlight\skies

And I should save all presets for Windlight water to:
C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\SecondLife\user_settings\windlight\water

Is that correct? What about the user created Windlight skies I currently have (by Torley, Morris, Raul and others)? Should they also be moved to C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\SecondLife\user_settings\windlight\skies? (they are currently in C:\Program Files\SecondLife\app_settings\windlight\skies).

Thanks for any confirmation/clarification you can provide.

Princess Ivory

Yes, that would be the best course of action, save new presets there, and copy existing presets there.

Thank you, Argent, so much for clarifying this - I really appreciate it!

Princess Ivory

Well, after some experimentation, it appears the water bug described in the SL Wiki still exists. So, Windlight water presets need to be saved the old way.

Do Not save water settings to:
C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\SecondLife\user_settings\windlight\water

They will not show up when you restart the SL viewer.

I had to leave water presets in:
C:\Program Files\SecondLife\app_settings\windlight\water (as per the instructions in the SL Wiki) in order to get them to display in the drop down menu in environmental editor settings after relogging the SL viewer.

Sky presets, on the other hand, worked fine when moved to:
C:
Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\SecondLife\user_settings\windlight\skies.

Just one of those annoying bugs, I guess.

Thanks for all the input everyone - it helped me to understand Windlight better!

Princess Ivory

Aha, https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-12164 is broader than I thought.

Ya know..... my sky and water settings almost always transfer with the viewer upgrades. They have for the last few upgrades. But, in order not to ever get railroaded again with losing them....I copied mine in a seperate file on my desktop....just in case.

But, still.....it's odd that I have NOT lost mine more often....I always hold my breath when updating the viewer and checking my environment settings.....but in reality...I think I've maybe lost them twice. The thing that will NOT remain is the day/night cycle that I've saved. I always have to go in and re-do that....but it's kind of fun so I don't mind.

I saved mine in both places. I don't seem to have duplicates in my settings list in the viewer.