[TUTORIAL - PC] How to automatically sync your character settings

[ZohnoReecho]

This tutorial will show how to sync your character folder between multiple PCs.

[preamble]
Since 2000 (version), Windows offers junctions.
You can imagine a junction as an alias of a real directory. When you will access this alias, in reality you are accessing the content of the folder it's pointing to.
It works kinda like a link, but it's transparent to applications since it's treated like a real directory.

After the junction is created, the folder being pointed to cannot be deleted. It will ask for admin permission when you try, but it will fail (to me at least).
If you delete the junction, the original folder/files will be left untouched.

Let's start

[notes]
Stuff between {} are variable and depend on your own config.
Stuff between [] are input commands and gotta be typed without the [].
This tutorial is based on windows 7.
I used dropbox as sync service with default settings.
If something breaks, I don't take any responsability

[prerequisites]
We are going to sync the folder using an external service like dropbox (https://www.dropbox.com/) or google drive (https://drive.google.com/).
You need to create an account and install the relative application on all of your PCs.

[step 1]
Move to your "main" PC (for main I mean the last one you used your char on).
Go to "C:\Users\{pc user}\Documents\My Games\FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn"
Here you'll find several FFXIV_CHR{16 chars} folders. Each of these is unique to your FFXIV char. Identify the one you wanna sync. You can change something while in-game, like the HUD, and check for the last edit date of the files inside to understand if it's the folder you need.
Now the game needs to be stopped.
Cut the folder and move it to the sync folder created by one of the services listed above. In my case I put it into a subfolder called "ffxiv".
Now the application will start to sync your folder.

[step 2]
Press Start and type [cmd].
Right click on the cmd.exe that will appear and click on "run as administrator". The command prompt will appear.
Now we are going to create the junction/alias.
In the command prompt type [linkd "C:\Users\{pc user}\Documents\My Games\FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn\FFXIV_CHR{16 chars}" "C:\Users\{pc user}\Dropbox\ffxiv\FFXIV_CHR{16 chars}"] and press Enter (the {16 chars} are the same for both paths, based on the folder you wanna sync).
A new icon will appear where the folder was before. It will look like a link but it's a junction (if you check the properties it doesn't have a ".lnk" extension and if you open it, the path will not look like the folder it's pointing to).

Jump to "step 4" if you just need to backup your files.

[step 3]
Wait for the files to sync and move to your secondary PC.
If this PC already has the folder you are trying to sync, you gotta delete it.
Now exec the "step 2" again on this PC.

[step 4]
Now launch the game on your main PC, try logging in and change something (hotbar buttons or HUD).
Then logout, try logging in on your secondary PC and check if the changes are there.
If everything went ok both logins should have gone well and the settings should be synced.

This tutorial has shown how to sync a single char folder but you can sync the whole "FINAL FANTASY XIV - A Realm Reborn" directory (instead of the single ones) if you also want to sync the launcher and game settings and screenshots. But screenshots, based on your habits, can take space and the sync services listed above only offer a limited amount of space for free, so it's your own choice

[Alcyon_Densetsu]

Nice A classic that's always good to know for many purposes.

If the PC's are on the same network though, a much easier solution is to use Microsoft in-house sync software: SyncToy (also free).
Here's a DL link: http://www.microsoft.com/download/details.aspx?id=15155

[ForteXX]

Ooh, I posted this over a month ago

Make that over 2 months ago

[Wolfhammer]

Decent enough idea but my two gaming PC's are separated by 100 miles. I find it much easier to drop the .dat files onto a stick before I travel.

[NightWrath]

deleted...

[ZohnoReecho]

Decent enough idea but my two gaming PC's are separated by 100 miles. I find it much easier to drop the .dat files onto a stick before I travel.

Dropbox/google drive work over the internet, so I don't see the issue o.o

[Lens]

USE MKLINK /J [folder destination] instead of linkd for window7

[ZohnoReecho]

USE MKLINK /J [folder destination] instead of linkd for window7

It will still create a junction, it will be the same on the file system. Anyway mklink requires both source and destination paths.