How to Install Elite on New Computer?

simulacrae

simulacrae
I feel silly writing this - it should be pretty obvious. Ive recently put together a new computer and I remember years ago being able to download a install for the game on a laptop... however that was when I could go to the Frontier store and it would show my game purchase and I would just redownload the installer. But now the purchase process points me to buy one from Steam even though i have a copy from Frontier. Im guessing this is a help desk question - but was surprised not to see a topic for this under the Technical Support page. Anyhooo - Thought Id try the forums before emailing the help desk in the hopes im just missing something. Thanks
 

WILLIAM BILL ADAMA

WILLIAM BILL ADAMA

Pask

Pask
to migrate ED to a new PC or just as "good habit for backup",

C:\Users\%userprofile%\Saved Games\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous
for journal logs

and

C:\Users\%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous
especially for configurations in \Options as keybindings, graphics, etc...

as additional information, Jounal log files format changed in U11 from Journal.YYMMDDHHMMSS.01.log to Journal.YYYY-MM-DDTHHMMSS.01.log so do not worry if you see "missleading formats".

I hope this helps
 

simulacrae

simulacrae
Thanks! I didnt think about the journal logs. Very helpful!
Still getting things set up on my new toy but looking forward to trying Elite out on it. - The computer it is replacing is the one i put together about 10 years ago to play Elite in the first place 🤣
 

Jack Winter

Jack Winter
There's also the visited stars cache file that one could copy over. It contains a record of all the stars visited and is not kept on the servers. I'm too lazy to look up the exact name and location.
 

Pask

Pask
Jack Winter said:
There's also the visited stars cache file that one could copy over. It contains a record of all the stars visited and is not kept on the servers. I'm too lazy to look up the exact name and location.
Click to expand...
lazy-o-helper mode on

still inside C:\Users\%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Frontier Developments\Elite Dangerous\ under <id number> folder, filename is VisitedStarsCache.dat

lazy-o-helper mode off
 

Exeider

Exeider
WILLIAM BILL ADAMA said:
If can, I strongly recommend to backup and to move your old "journal files". It has complete records of your whole playtimes, and some 3rd party tools can visualize your history with it

My worst regret is... sadly... I forgot to backup my "journal files", then I lost One million light-year explorartion history... when I changed my desktop. :(

Journal files are located in...
Click to expand...
Sorry about your loss, but question, Did that computer have windows restore running? Because that uses the volume shadow copy service and if you still have the old hard drive you can pull the VSS files off and recover a restore point, which in turn you mount and explore that and recover your files.
 

simulacrae

simulacrae
Cheers all! Got it up and running logs and settings moved over - im sure I would have mucked it up without your help. Thanks Again

ldRPPKx.jpeg


Having a little Tequila for my inaugural flight...
 

Andy Gee

Andy Gee
Another stupid question: Is there anything to consider for ED when equipping a new computer with a cloned disk from the old computer, or can you start right away with the carried over ED installation?
 

DjVortex

DjVortex
Andy Gee said:
when equipping a new computer with a cloned disk from the old computer
Click to expand...
Unrelated to the original topic, but I would not really recommend using cloned drives in new computers. Just install your OS fresh, install the software you are using, and copy relevant datafiles over. It might sound like a lot of work, but in the end it isn't, really.

Windows particularly tends to become slower over time, and a fresh install (especially in a new computer) will make it fast again. Also if there's any corruption of drivers or their related data, those get cleaned up. If, however, you just try to clone the old installation to a new computer, the hardware will radically change and while Windows theoretically supports this (it will automatically detect all the new hardware and install all relevant drivers and make all relevant changes), it's such a huge and complicated OS that you are likely to just make it even slower and more unstable that way. A fresh install will keep it minimal and snappy, with no useless extra stuff, making it faster and stabler.

If your OS is Linux then it doesn't usually suffer so much form the phenomenon of getting slower over time, but in my experience it may support a complete transfer to another computer even more poorly than Windows does (depending enormously on which distro you are using.)

I understand perfectly that after having using the computer for many years and having installed tons of software and having tons of data files it may feel daunting and overwhelming to start from scratch, but I can also tell from experience that in the end it actually isn't as bad as it might feel at first, and most likely you'll be glad you did. It's a total spring cleanup for your system, and it will be all the better for it.

(That being said, I don't know if copying all the ED data/log files to a new installation will work like a charm.)
 
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