Run Addons from NAS?
 

Hi,
I play WoW both on my desktop PC and sometimes from my laptop. I run the same addons on both so I wondered if it is possible to move my Addons directory to an NAS drive and config WoW to point to it? I thought since WoW just seems to load the addons once that it would only slow down the initial startup but then the rest of the game would be running locally. That way I would only have to update my addons in one place instead of on each machine.

Thanks,
Twidget

what about putting WoW on the NAS drive completely and point a shortcut to the launcher there, i'm not really into the NAS drive's but if your able to browse to it like its a network folder, it might work.

Hi,
I thought of that. I could do that but it would be much slower running the game over the network vice running it from a local HDD. That's why I wonder if there is a config setting in WoW, or a registry setting, or something, that would allow me to just move the Addons directory to the NAS.

Thanks,
Twidget

WoW has just one location for the AddOns directory, namely: <installpath>\Interface\AddOns.

This can't be changed. I'm sorry.

I think that WoW, for the most part, is hard coded to look for AddOns in a specific location. The only time that WoW will look for AddOns in a different location is if WoW is installed in Windows Vista/7's Program Files folder. Thus WoW has to look elsewhere in the user's Virtual Store.

On all other OSes or if WoW is not installed in Program Files, then WoW expects to find AddOns in your Interface/Addons folder. There is no user accessible config setting (that I have found) to change your AddOn's location, and WoW does not use Registry settings (except for one temporary one).

I think that running from a NAS drive would only be slower when it comes to reading/writing data at startup/log-in/log-off as once you are playing, WoW loads into your local machine's RAM. If you got plenty of RAM, you should be able to start run WoW from a NAS drive without much noticeable slowdown (unless your network is really slow to being with). The slow periods would be when you zone from Kalimdor/Azeroth/Northrend/Outland and into instances. Once zoned in, you should be fine.

If your NAS is available as a filepath you could try to have
links in on your both systems to point to a directory on your NAS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS_symbolic_link

WoW will, in fact, follow shortcuts/symlinks. This was broken for a while on Mac in particular, a while back, but it's been fixed.

Another option is using something like Dropbox (or other similar software) to sync the files between the computers. That way you get both the speed of having the files locally and the convenience them being the same on all of your systems. (As an added benefit, you can access the files when you are visiting a friend, or if your NAS has died)

Rilgamon & Forty2,
That worked. I setup the symbolic link and it works just fine. A little slow on start up but I expected that.
Thanks!

NitraMo,
I like this idea too. I am going to download it and set it up. It would be nice to avoid the slow startup.
Thanks!

Twidget

I like the Dropbox idea. I find Dropbox to be very handy with other things so this shouldn't have been a surprise. Then, again, that maybe my irritating cold (and the lack of sleep due to it) talking.

Must get some caffeine...

/caffeine deprived zombie mode