Hi everyone, sorry for the wall of text, but I'm not quite sure how to describe my issue simply. I recently decided to make a backup of the current version of TSC. I copied the Railworks folder from the Steam directory and placed it in a folder on my desktop. I then attempted to run the program from inside the folder. Upon viewing the quick drive menu, I found that a large majority of the content that I own seems to be missing (despite the fact that I verified that all the route and rolling stock had been successfully transferred). I then selected a random route and locomotive to test things out with (a CN widecab SD40, and the Surfline). Upon loading, I realized that everything on the route (save for the ground textures and terrain) was missing. I then went into the route editor and decided to create a scenario for a different route for further testing (Granger Heartland, in this instance, which did not appear in the quick drive menu of selectable routes). When the editor loaded, there was absolutely nothing, except for a textureless grid pattern, and a few floating portals scattered around the area. I went to check if something was wrong with the Steam install, but it was working perfectly. No missing routes, stock, assets, or textures. What puzzles me is the fact that I made a backup of the version of the game that immediately preceded the core updates, and it ran perfectly from its folder on the desktop. I have not idea why this version is giving me so much grief, and I would greatly appreciate if somebody could help me out here. (One more bit of additional info, in case this would be considered helpful. I discovered that some of the missing rolling stock would appear, only after I extracted their associated .ap files).
I don't think you could run the game from an external backup because of the number of times it would read back and forth over a USB connection compared with a SATA connection in the computer. Running the backup from the Desktop the files are still on a drive that is on your computer. When I downloaded an earlier version of the game I placed it on a separate internal drive.
My apologies if the title confused you, I meant to say that I am trying to run a copied version of the program from a folder located on my desktop, not from an external drive.
Not sure what went wrong on your end, RailWorks(64).exe can be started from anywhere (except clouds like OneDrive) as long as the "steam_appid.txt" is present in its root folder. I have multiple installations all working fine. Is your main installation ok? All DLC you want to play from an external folder must also be activated for your main game, else DRM can prevent stuff from loading.
My guess is the Steam DRM isn't recognising external drives with the game alone, try making it an official alternative location through Steams "Add Drive" Edit, If Spikee's suggestion doesn't work first of course..
Steam does not need to recognise its folder Reef (and you can only set ONE folder in Steam naturally). It is only interested in the "steam_appid.txt" to know it's Train Simulator you are running and activate DRM decrypting. If that file is not present it will launch the game from its registered official path.
The main installation works flawlessly, it's only the desktop archive that's causing me trouble. While I'm fairly certain that the steam_appid file was copied over, I'll double check once I get back to my computer.
Just drag your backup somewhere else - the Desktop folder is not a good place, ideally it should only contain shortcuts but not exes and dlls - it might be UAC preventing the game from writing to files it needs to. Just move your backup to let's say C:\RailWorksBackup directly and it should work.
I'll give that a shot once I verify whether the steam_appid file is there. I didn't realize that storing things on the desktop wasn't a good idea.
You can store anything you like on the desktop, but not install complex software there which can fail due to the let's say special properties of that folder. Just move it to a non-UAC path (means not "Users" or "Documents" or "Program Files"), should be a matter of seconds on the same drive. I've got a dedicated SSD and run it from E:\RailWorks.
