New PC, how to most effectively install ffxi?

[cdgreg]

Picking up a new PC and I am wondering my best route to transfer everything to the new HDD or where to start fresh? I have a 500 GB external where I can copy my whole damn Playonline folder to, but I imagine I actually need to install atleast POL for registry purposes? Do I basically follow the below steps:

1.) Backup Entire Playonline and windower folders on external HDD
2.) Install POL from SE website on new HDD
3.) Find Kohan's thread that is no longer stickied and try to find individual DLs for the various add-ons?
4.) Copy #1 over new ffxi folder and let the ROMs all overwrite
5.) Copy Windower to new HDD
6.) Run Windower
7.) ???
8.) PROFIT!!!

[The Stig]

I did the following, as no matter how much I followed instructions to twig the registry, it never damn works:

1. Install POL from SE
2. Move (copy paste) my current (old) SE folder into hard drive
3. This is awkward, but it works good for me ... install FF base, Zilart, CoP, ToAU, WoTG and since SOA came out, that too. For registry purposes. As said, the registry methods never worked for me personally, but others have success
4. Without launching POL yet, copy my SE folder from external drive to my installed directory
5. Launch POL via Windower of choice, login, launch game and it will attempt a file check
6. Presuming you modded nothing/didn't change anything/is latest version, the file check might do a little or even nothing (I have lots of modded music. The file check does not replace them for me, my old FFXIII battle music was still my battle music, for example)
7. Play

No need to find individual files for addons, they're not technically installations (just like abyssea). It's included in the game files already and is controlled by product keys in the back end.

[cdgreg]

Thanks for the write up, where did you find thes files: " install FF base, Zilart, CoP, ToAU, WoTG and since SOA came out, that too"

[Kaces]

I haven't installed via installers for 5-6 years now, I just backup the entire PlayOnline folder and patch up the registry from there.

1. Install POL from SE
2. Create the following files:

ffxi.reg
- assumes 64bit OS
- point to YOUR POL location
- double click to import

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\PlayOnlineUS]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\PlayOnlineUS\InstallFolder]
"0001"="E:\\PlayOnline\\SquareEnix\\FINAL FANTASY XI\\"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\PlayOnlineUS\Interface]
"0001"="0200b098"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\PlayOnlineUS\SquareEnix]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\PlayOnlineUS\SquareEnix\FinalFantasyXI]
"bFirst"=hex:00
"0001"=dword:00000280
"0002"=dword:000001e0
"0021"=dword:00000001
"0000"=dword:00000000
"0003"=dword:00000200
"0004"=dword:00000200
"0007"=dword:00000001
"0011"=dword:00000002
"0017"=dword:00000000
"0018"=dword:00000002
"0019"=dword:00000001
"0020"=dword:00000001
"0022"=dword:00000000
"0023"=dword:00000000
"0024"=dword:00000000
"0028"=dword:00000000
"0029"=dword:0000000c
"0030"=dword:00000000
"0031"=dword:3bc49ba6
"0032"=dword:00000000
"0033"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\PlayOnlineUS\SquareEnix\PlayOnlineViewer]
"FirstBootPlayMovie"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\PlayOnlineUS\SquareEnix\PlayOnlineViewer\Settings]
"ResetSettings"=dword:00000000
"PlayOpeningMovie"=dword:00000001
"FullScreen"=dword:00000000
"PlayAudio"=dword:00000000
"UseGameController"=dword:00000000
"WindowX"=dword:00000174
"WindowY"=dword:000001a9
"WindowW"=dword:0000027e
"WindowH"=dword:000001df

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\PlayOnlineUS\SquareEnix\PlayOnlineViewer\Settings\Controller]
"AnchorUp"=dword:00000030
"AnchorRight"=dword:00000032
"AnchorLeft"=dword:00000036
"AnchorDown"=dword:00000034
"ChrCsrNext"=dword:00000007
"ChrCsrPrev"=dword:00000006
"PageNext"=dword:00000005
"PagePrev"=dword:00000004
"Navi"=dword:00000003
"Menu"=dword:00000000
"Ok"=dword:00000001
"Cancel"=dword:00000002
"ID"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\PlayOnlineUS\SquareEnix\PlayOnlineViewer\SystemInfo]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\PlayOnlineUS\SquareEnix\PlayOnlineViewer\SystemInfo\QCheck]
"LastMeasurementTime"=hex:0f,e1,69,46,00,00,00,00

regdll.bat
- place in Playonline folder
- double click to install dlls

FOR /R %%G IN (*.dll) DO regsvr32 /s "%%G"

[The Stig]

Thanks for the write up, where did you find thes files: " install FF base, Zilart, CoP, ToAU, WoTG and since SOA came out, that too"

Oh sorry, I thought you'd have the CDs. Those were just the original CDs that I had when I brought the games.

If you don't have them, then yeh I suggest digging out that torrent, or, follow Kaces's method (which I've never had success with, unless the EU one has an extremely slight difference in the registry (yes I did change the US to EU, yes I did change it depending on 32 or 64 bit) but hey whatever is worth a shot if you don't have the CDs).

[Kaces]

Have you ever registered the dlls when attempting the copy/paste method?

[SephYuyX]

Cmon man, are you really going to spend x amount of active hours to do it this way (backup, reg changes, etc), instead of just installing and let it update over night?
Just remember to back up your USER folder though.

Word of advice, just go through it the normal way, and you wont run in to issues down the road.

[GeneyusTitan]

Yah, I just spent 30 bucks on Amazon to forever have a digital copy that I can download and install at any time. Much less of a headache.

[Rhiannon2]

Lol that's what I did too. Bought the Amazon Ultimate Adoulin edition just to have the "backup" digital copy.

[Yugl]

Remember to use DB this round too so your addon settings save to the cloud as well.

[Kaces]

X-amount of active hours? Takes all of five minutes, he gave the impression that he was going to backup his entire PlayOnline folder so the idea of it being troublesome is for those who can't copy and paste; takes longer via installers.

[cdgreg]

Remember to use DB this round too so your addon settings save to the cloud as well.

Good idea, how does one do this?

[Yugl]

Make a folder within dropbox named "Windower." DL and extract to that folder. The rest should work as usual.

[Kohan]

Cmon man, are you really going to spend x amount of active hours to do it this way (backup, reg changes, etc), instead of just installing and let it update over night?
Just remember to back up your USER folder though.

Word of advice, just go through it the normal way, and you wont run in to issues down the road.

There's no reason to run into issues, and even if you did, you would still finish the process far faster than you would complete an entirely fresh installation—and I can explain why.

When you install FFXI traditionally, it inserts the registry entries for you, and registers DLLs accordingly. Other than that, it doesn't do anything special. To be more specific, it doesn't do anything else at all. There's literally no advantage to doing it this way over using registry files and a batch script to do it yourself, unless you really want to see the old, low-resolution screenshots that the installer uses, and can't wait to update from scratch.

As for the aforementioned Windows registry entries, they're stored in files that are plain text. That's why Kaces could post them above, naturally. However, some people may not be able to get these to work right off the bat, such as Stig, who mentioned as much. Fortunately, there's a couple of potential solutions to that, too.

Solution 1: Before you stop using the OS you've already installed FFXI on, you open your Registry Editor and back up the registry strings yourself. If I open regedit.exe right now, I can do the following:

A. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\PlayOnline US.
* Note: If you're not using a 64-bit version of Windows, ignore "Wow6432Node"—you'll see "\...\Software\PlayOnlineUS" instead.
B. Right-click "PlayOnlineUS," and then choose "Export."
C. Save the registry branch as a file with an obvious, relevant name (e.g., "FFXI-Win764-RegistryBackup.reg") in a place where I won't forget about it.
D. Back this up wherever I want to (e.g., a cloud drive, or on a USB stick), and then drag and drop my FFXI installation to a new place.
E. Once it's time, I can open up that registry file in a plain text editor, change the file location addresses accordingly (keeping the double slashes intact), and then save and run it.
F. Lastly, I run the batch file provided above from the PlayOnline directory, and then I can play FFXI.
* Note: For steps E and F, if you're in Windows with UAC active, you may have to run both the registry and batch files with administrator permissions.

Solution 2: For those who are intimidated by using the registry (though I promise it's not bad—don't delete anything, and you'll be fine), you can use Stig's method: specifically, installing every expansion and then copying and pasting your old folders on top of them. This takes a lot longer, but is still significantly faster than completely re-installing and updating from scratch. It doesn't have any advantage over the first solution, though, as it does the same exact thing, but also spends a lot of time decompressing files that you're just going to write over anyway.

Additionally, and no matter which of the two solutions you use, the reason it's still better to copy over an existing installation is due to the fact that PlayOnline can occasionally choke on random files while it's updating. This would result in your installation being boned while you're asleep, requiring you to resume it when you get up, and potentially not getting to play when you want to. Meanwhile, you would know that your existing installation already worked, and if you had used it instead, you would have already been playing.

[Shadowneko]

I don't use windowers(never will) so I just use the disks/installs and sometimes copy all the dats and macro files over to save on downloading like a million updates. I haven't done this for awhile and when my sister tired to do it last month it glitched some of the sounds(so she says) so she ended up doing like 4-5 hours of updates.

[KCem]

Slightly related, but the UK amazon store doesn't stock the download version of the ultimate seekers collection, if I buy it from the US store, will I have to go through some sort of drama to get the game to do an EU installation? Or does the game not differentiate regions like that?

[grevenilvec75]

The code won't work, and you will need to do a brand new full install, but shouldnt have too many problems now that all of the money stuff is taken care of through SE accounts.

i've been playing with an EU account with NA install for years. Only probelms I ever had was with POL viewer trying to do things like buy abyssea addons and such. Had to keep a copy of the EU pol viewer installed to do those things. Like I said though, now that everything is handled with SE account I've had 0 problems.


If you need the code, though, i'd go to gamesplanet.uk (or whatever it was called) which is where i got my code + download.

[KCem]

Gamesplanet works a treat for me, cheers!

[nitsuj]

The steam copy of seekers installs and patches fast. I too recommend having windower4 on your Dropbox and then you can be up in running in < 1 hr on a good connection.