I use a handy tool for making symlinks called "Link Shell Extension". (Link in my signature)

Spoiler: To not use space here is a spoiler of info

I use it mainly for linking "generic'" folders , like DAW library folders, portable programs, etc.
Originally I only moved my VST3 folder to the root of my C drive for convenience in managing things when testing sketchy VST3 versions of some plugins. I later realized it would prevent deletion ... because that is what happens with symlinks.


For MOST things I want to have the actual folder on the OS drive, but when they include big libraries i will move the library and symlink.
That means letting the installer keep the default install path, even if there is an option to "browse".

That method keeps a lot of things "standard" when dealing with locations, so if someone refers to a location to put something or look for something, you can browse right to it and not have to remember where you chose to put it.

I have any DAW libraries & personalized preset folders on my own "DAW Library" drives. If they are just factory satuff and not large, no point in moving them, but if I spent time organizing I don't want it messed up. When updating those, I make sure to temporarily rename the symlink folder (usually adding a ".x" at the end, like "C:\ProgramData\Output.x" and that way a new "Output" folder gets created.
Then I can manually copy in any new stuff I want, but avoid having the presets dumped into my personally organized library with resulting duplications and sloppy shit.

Only a very few do I really worry about. Most of them I use VR sourced presets and leave them mostly alone. Any "personalization' for most involves symlinking my own "0 - Taken" presets folder into the presets folder. I usually add that link in (named so as to appear at the top) and also drop a symlink in again.

That one will get named "0 - Taken - SymbolicLink" because there is already a folder with that name (the first symlink).
I delete the typical 'User" folder and then rename "0 - Taken - SymbolicLink" to "User".
Now, when I save to the "User" folder (the only place some allow...or at least the default or easiest) it will be saving to my personal folder "(0 - Taken" on another drive in my personal presets folder.

Some instruments (Rob Papen, for example) need to have the folders refreshed for presets newly saved to the 'User" folder to show up in the personal folder ("0 - Taken" in my case), but that's often very fast.
Here is an example of linking the entire vendor folder from the documents folder to my own drive.
I did that with the "Program Files\Common Files\Rob Papen\" folder, too, because its like 2.35 Gig.
I use abbreviations of paths in my folder names so I know where they are linked to.

 

I like to use "EaseUS Todo backup home" because it is pretty easy to understand and it's reliable.

Spoiler: My experiences with TODO backup

I was wary at first (many years ago) because they seemed to be a Chinese comapany, but after dealing with customer support early on and then over time purchasing it for a few computers, I began to be impressed. Their English seems to be better than most native speakers and their tutorials and instructions are great. I only recently found out that they make music programs, too "EASEUS Make My Audio" - LOL. I actually installed the package from sister site..never got around to trying though.

Anyway, I now use an unofficial version (v13.5.0.0) I got from "Friendly Sites" 'Soft Archive' on sister site. (Link on lower left).
They regularly have versions there. I originally downloaded to test for a friend but then realized it was quite a lot faster than my older paid version... I plan to buy it again once my finances improve ... no matter the country of origin, I don't mind supporting companies that have done me so well over the years.

The paid version (or from sister site) allows filtering to not backup folders and files and you can select folder to exclude or enter the names to exclude, like "hiberfil.sys", "pagefile.sys", etc. I have restored so many times with Todo backup...

For a while I was using it to restore over and over as I tested all kinds of software games, utilities, DAW & media stuff) and methods on my PC and did not want leftovers and errors ... and restoring took so little time with SSD that I didn't mind.
I guess i restored around 300 times over the years, mostly during that era of experimenting.
Then I began to worry about the wear and tear on my SSD drives ... Well that was back in 2017 - 2018 and I am still using them and don't worry when they will fail .. I always have backups!!
I only had one failure to restore and it seems to have been a bad image (I never bothered checking them after the first bunch or restores) There may have been other bad images I never knew about, because i must have done thousands with different versions across different OSes, from XP to current Win10, but in general I trust it

Spoiler: What I do about AV

I only use Windows Defender, but have it turned OFF (folder exception - choose entire drive) for all drives, and have exceptions on most folders... The only ones I want scanned are the Windows folder, the downloads folder and the AppData folders because something in there is involved in Google downloads .
I download only from sister site, FRIENDLY SITE (sister site link on bottom left) and occasionally Russian T site, and those go via jDownloader directly to my selected folder on my "work" drive.

 

Last edited: Apr 3, 2023

That's an amazing tip. I think that's what I will manually delete my plugins too. I never know what I'm gambling with when I use control panel to uninstall, that's very true. I'll check out CrapCleaner today too. That would actually be incredible if plugin companies did install into their own folders. It would make the folder way more neat & organize as well. Damn, now that you mention it, why don't they do that? WTF.

 

Thanks so much, I'll look into this. I had no idea there were condoms for this shit. Very handy indeed.

 

so ive snaggzled the app from softarchive, but it seems as though that build 13.5 has vvarious malwares in/on it... i've done a pretty thorough vetteing and not looking to put this on mhy computer... maybe you have a direct link to something that has proven to work for you






??? probably PM

thanks again you