Issues with OneDrive and multiple computers

from Stardock Forums

I bought a 5 pack of licenses for Deskscapes. Very cool app. It defaults to putting a stardock folder in my documents, which is managed by Onedrive. If I put the app on my second, third etc. computers, I get nasty grams about overwriting files and it creates duplicates.

I've tried excluding the folder, excluding the .db extension and making the Stardock folder a symlink. Nothing works.

I don't see anyway to manage that default location in the app, but I thought I'd ask here and see if anyone has figured it out.

 

Stardock Software DeskScapes Type: Question
198 views 7 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. Need few more information.

  1. Windows 11/10 full version number installed for all system. Use Winver.exe to get these numbers.
  2. Deskscapes full version number installed

Thank you,
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Edition Windows 11 Pro
Version 25H2
Installed on ‎10/‎4/‎2024
OS build 26200.9457
Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.26100.360.0

Deskscapes 26.0.1.1

The Political Machine 2024
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello,
I have forwarded your problem/question to Stardock Support Team for their assistance. Please keep an eye on this thread for any updates. We appreciate your feedback and patience. Thank you.

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Hi Brett2,

Thank you for your post.

I don't think the symlink approach would work here, as OneDrive does not follow junctions or symbolic links.  And you mentioned excluding the folder.  Could you clarify what you did exactly?  An image of the error might also help to clarify where it's coming from.

To stop a subfolder syncing in the OneDrive, would be through the OneDrive tray icon under Settings > Account.  Click "Choose folders", and there you can untick the Stardock folder.  You would need to try doing that on each computer.

Please let us know if that helps.

Best regards,

Adam McGuinness
Stardock Support Specialist

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

Hi there!

The issue is that all my computers use the same Onedrive space for their documents folder, which causes deskscapes.db to be overwritten each time a different computer attaches to it.

The symlink approach was tried because I knew that Onedrive wouldn't back that up. That works on one machine, but I can't create another local symlink on a new machine with the target having the same name.

The Onedrive settings allow me to stop backups from 'documents' but not subfolders. I also tried excluding the .db extension, but it says, "Enter a valid rule such as .txt or .docx to ignore all files with that extension" For some reason it won't take .db as a valid extension.

What would solve the problem for sure is being able to choose the folder for deskscapes.db, is that possible?

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

That makes sense. Having an option to choose where deskscapes.db is stored would probably solve the OneDrive conflict. Hopefully this option can be added.

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

I have been using OneDrive for many years and, in my experience, it doesn't seem to recognize exclusions very well. A good example is that excluding .pst for Outlook doesn't work, and backing up a large .pst file will tie up OneDrive indefinitely.

It actually would be great to have OneDrive sync the Dreams folder for all machines to have the same Dreams available to all machines.

My suggestion for a test would be to Pause OneDrive Syncing on the new machine before installing DeskScapes. When installation is complete, disable DeskScapes in the settings, and then delete the contents of the Dreams folder on that machine. Now resume OneDrive Syncing, and after the sync is complete, re-enable DeskScapes.

I'm not sure if this will actually work, but it's worth a try.

I also think it would be nice to declare the location of the Dreams folder during the installation.