Best way for Uninstalling Mods: Is Mod Manager really necessary?

[Petty Andretti]

I juts bought rFactor yesterday and have already installed several Mods. I installed all of them directly using the mod .exe or just installing them into the main folder.

One thing I've seen when installing some of the mods was a notice to UNinstall any previous versions of the mod before installing the latest version.

But I don't see any easy way of uninstalling previous versions of the mod unless I delete each of the files manually. :confused: It's too late now but would Mod Manager make it easy to uninstall any previous version? I'd rather not bother with Mod Manager since, so far, it looks like rFactor is doing a good enough job on its own. Is manually deleting all the mod files safe to do, as long as the files aren't shared? Is there another tool that will detect and safely remove previous versions of mods?

Thanks in advance

[snowy]

I was a Mod Manager fanatic for a while but they too can have a habit of screwing up and they take extra time to load and to make demands on you to package and repackage your mods and addons, duplicating the files and taking up even more space. With tracks there is no real problems, they all go in the Locations folder and mind their own business. With the actual mods I came to the conclusion that manually installing them was the only real answer. For this to work efficiently and for you to be able to uninstall at will it is necessary to keep/backup all the mod downloads or record all the files they write and where they write them. If you need to uninstall just look in the archive and see what it wrote and where then delete those files. The main trick is to always misdirect any .exes. Never let them put files directly into your rFactor folder they will only mess with your system and your head.

There really isn't any better or easier way to do it than manually because you get to decide if anything gets overwritten, you (more often than not) know where you put things and get a good idea of where the mod guy might have made an error. You can put the thing right yourself without having to trawl around trying to find a solution to a silly problem caused by there being two folders in your rFactor folder one called sounds and one called suonds. Or an extra sounds folder inside your sounds folder, if you get my drift. It's ultimately about taking control and not just being a pawn for other people to push around.

[snowy]

Oh just a word about the uninstallers that one gets with exe type mod installs. They don't or can't always uninstall the files they are designed to remove. This can obviously lead to problems when it comes to those pesky updates and upgrades that we sit on tenter hooks waiting for!

[MOF]

I agree totally with snowy. Manual installs and manual un-installs.

What I do, personally, is keep the original download someplace else (those of us with CD\DVD burners have it easy, storage space-wise). If I decide that the install is garbage, or I no longer want it, or whatever the case may be, I just make a new folder on the desktop, stick the original download in it, and 'extract here'. There are generally only two or 3 folders with any info in them, and by opening those particular folders, I can determine exactly which files pertain to the install I want to get rid of. Just a simple comparison is all I'm doing. Match the desktop folder file contents with what's in the game and delete the games' same files; bit slow, but almost foolproof, IMHO.

If I can't get an .exe install to 'extract here', it doesn't go into the sim. Simple as that. Like snowy said, I want control of what goes where...

[Petty Andretti]

OK, thanks for the replies.

Damn.:( I think I should just uninstall/reinstall rFactor right now before I get into a real mess. I already made the mistake of installing a couple of mods using the .exe autoinstall method.

I should just start clean now before it's too late.

Thanks again

[Petty Andretti]

I forgot to ask: Where is the archive?

If you need to uninstall just look in the archive and see what it wrote and where then delete those files.

[snowy]

The archive I was refering to would be the original zip or rar file. I was also infering that if you made a note or list of files that would be your own form of archive. In the case of exe's you can get programs that can look inside an .exe and see what it is going to install and where it's going to be put. IN fact Win rar can look inside a lot of these .exe files because basically a lot of them are just self extracting archives! Does that make sense to you? :)

[Petty Andretti]

Does that make sense to you? :)

Yes.:up:

Thanks