#120 Automatically create Black Gate and Serpent Isle "Drop Dirs"

The current Exult installer seems a bit backwards - the user is asked to specify paths to Black Gate and Serpent Isle during the install itself. Not sure about other users, but I always install in the following order:
* Exult
* Create C:\Program Files\Exult\Games directory
* Create C:\Program Files\Exult\Games\BlackGate directory
* Create C:\Program Files\Exult\Games\SerpentIsle directory
* Edit exult.cfg

The current installer doesn't let you do this, meaning a lot of manual work is required to get a basic game up and running. It would be really nice if Exult, by default, created blank directories with an autoconfigured exult.cfg so you could just copy in the game files and be good to go :)

[Knight Captain]

+1 on this being a pain point.

Exult already uses the Windows user's \AppData\Local\Exult folder, but this is intentionally not easily accessible on Microsoft's part. That's easily fixable by putting a shortcut in the Start Menu, named something like Exult AppData.

The \AppData\Local\Exult folder should have a new 'original_games' folder, with the default folders:
blackgate
forgeofvirtue
serpentbeta
serpentisle
silverseed

Exult already has logic to tell which game is in which folder, so 'blackgate' can have 'forgeofvirtue' in it without any trouble.

Then the default exult.cfg and config example should use these new paths.

This avoids the need to set Write access on any Program Files folder, and avoids further work needed to split out the original games from mods and patches folders.

[Dominik Reichardt]

1. You can run the installer again after having installed the games
2. you shouldn't install the games in the program files folder structure. just don't
3. you can point at a patch or mod folder wherever you like in the cfg
4. adding more stuff like this will lead to insanity
5. you can easily get to the appdata folder by running "shell:Local AppData\Exult"

[Knight Captain]

1. Horrible user experience.
2. That's not what I suggested, as it violates MS guidelines.
3. Easy for us, not end users.
4. Shortcuts are a mess right now.
5. Easy for us, not end users.

Kindly consider reopening this request.

[Dominik Reichardt]

1. and 2. concern the OP. If one insists of hsving the games in the Exult program files subfolders then this is the way. you mentioned write access to program files.
2. what you suggest is a more advanced user problem to begin with. a normal user is happy to install a mod and be done with it. No glaring need to split the mods/patches from the original files, IMO.
3. are they? (except for the ES txt/html mix up)
4. all the more reason to not put more in that folder but I do think that's easy and I point it out in the documentation.