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Preface Having heard Linus complain about games automatically updating in Steam, I feel compelled to highlight a feature of Microsoft Windows since XP?️ and something that's been around since Ext3 was a thing for open-source operating systems. This works for anything which requires updates for continued operation by an end-user. And you already have these tools in your system. The feature Filesystem links. Many open-source systems had been using hard links for creating faux replacement of library files when a library upgrades, avid users have been using directory junctions and symbolic ("soft") links with remote storage management software to distribute files without creating hard duplicates on the local filesystem and yes, it can even make game modding without destroying or otherwise making useless original content stupid-easy. How it works For files on partition formats which support this feature, the idea is pretty simple; they're shortcuts on steroids. Rather than a launcher to a file, they are the actual file itself being referenced from a different location. This can be leveraged in a variety of ways (use your imagination), but there are some limitations: The partition must support the creation of filesystem links. Between partitions, only soft links can be used. Directories (usually) should not be referenced by a hard link. Soft links contribute to inodes in use (as they are, in effect another file).? Filesystem link support for remote storage applications vary. For soft links, they reference the absolute path of a file. So if the path does not exist, the file is broken. For hard links, they reference the index node of another file. This is why whereas soft links use inodes, hard links do not because they are the file. Also, wh you can delete the original file but your hard links still cue the file you deleted because the index node is not orphaned. Soft links can also be made to a partition format which does not support links in most instances, but not from because the partition format targeted does not support it. So right how does this help with games? In a variety of ways, links can be made to help preserve the original copies of files, but have modified content made available by referencing a game from a different path. It might seem like a pain in the ass to do, but with some work in the command line you can create easy-to-use scripts to execute which will do all of the heavy lifting for you. ...No wait, hang on! Yes, I said scripts, but the software used will help create these scripts rather easily with some basic modifications. I promise it's easy. If this idiot can do it... well, yeah. #teamtrees From hereon, everything referenced is for Microsoft Windows. You open-source nerds should be smart enough to convert these instructions for your variety of Linux, Unix or BSD. To create a forest, one must first plant its seeds. While cliché, it's also true, and as such this maxim should be exercised before any other action takes place. To get your seeds, open cmd and cd into a directory you want to create a duplicate of. Once there, perform tree /F /A > file.txt (name file.txt anything you wish, to any path you want this text file to be at) and open it in your preferred text editor. Growing the forest Its output is... well, a tree of the directory, including files (due to the /F argument) and using readable characters (due to the /A argument). Using find and replace, use context clues to figure out which set of characters to replace with the following commands: mkdir mklink for soft file links mklink /H for hard file links mklink /D for soft directory links mklink /J for hard directory links On Windows, a limitation of how many files can be made in a given partition isn't too much of a concern so really, you should use soft links wherever you can, but only for directories you will not be touching. Having foreknowledge of what directories your modifications will touch is necessary for these future file operations to produce a clean work which does not jeopardize the integrity of a game's original files. So in brief, this is how your script should handle this operation: mkdir modGame cd modGame mklink /D modGame originalGame/originalDir mklink modGame originalGame/orginalFile mklink /D modGame modSrc/modDir mklink modGame modSrc/modFile mkdir modGame/moreDir mklink /D modGame/moreDir originalGame/moreDir/originalDir mklink modGame/moreDir orginalGame/moreDir/originalFile mklink /D modGame/moreDir modSrc/moreDir/modDir mklink modGame/moreDir modSrc/moreDir/modFile And so on With each representing the following: original*: Original game, original game directory or original game file. mod*: Modified game, modified game directory or modified game file. modSrc*: Modification source *Game: Title in question *Dir: A directory / folder *File: A file The two initial commands are for creating a new directory for the modified game. So while some things could be directly linked, such as a game's dependencies or the game itself, other things which your modifications will adjust must be put into their own directories, and should be a mix of the game's original files, with the modified files which would otherwise be overwritten. The above example can be modified to suit; if you intend on just creating the modified game root directory yourself, just have the link commands and create new directories further up the tree as you go. Save your work as a batch (.bat) file, and execute it. If all goes well, your work should yield a modified game using only symbolic and / or hard links. A GUI way If the above is just, like, way too much or you don't feel like spending a weekend doing any of this stuff, then there is a utility for Explorer you can install which will permit creation of filesystem links within the file manager itself. This utility can be found here: https://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html#download The main caveat being that if you want to share this with your friends, you have to repeat your operations on their machines, whereas with a script your operations can be distributed with simple instructions for them to apply modifications themselves, should you want to share interactive in a multiplayer session where mods are not usually supported in-game. If you want to get into some more advanced stuff using %variables%, then you can further simplify the main script and tell your friends to play with the variables themselves, as well include simple if/else conditionals to stop your friends from being idiots and somehow accidentally using the wrong stuff, but that is beyond the scope of this article. Conclusion The use of filesystem links for game modification can be a bit tedious; Not only do you have to create a file which performs operations for you or use a GUI utility to do this stuff (and replicate your steps on other machines), you also have to manage your links between game updates. This can be as simple as overwriting your mod sources, or as complex as re-writing the entire script from scratch. however the time spent is worthwhile, if you want to modify something guarded by DRM, but not want to also ruin your original content to keep that usable in multiplayer or other guests who don't prefer to use your mods.

Hi I have been having major issues with my computer ever since we uninstalled F-secure, there has always been excess F-secure running in the back ground and taking up all of the disk read and write speed, we are also having issues were we couldn't launch google chrome as it would just give us an error saying that it cancelled the operation because it took to long. Lately we have been getting bigger issues as we cannot launch the task manager through anyway that I know. we have run our virus checker and come up with nothing, we are now backing everything up but I need to know if anyone has had this problem or if anyone knows how we can remove the F-secure stuff from our computer. We have some registry editors that we want to use to remove all files from F-secure that are in the registry but we have got issues with the admin account as we are on Windows 10 and would like to know how we can get acces to admin features as we have tried going through the command prompter to set the current account to admin. if you have any ideas of what we can do please let me know asap as we need this computer for all of our work at home.