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Dragon Magazine Archives-Moving Files
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Gnat the Beggar
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Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 9:27 am

Do the files get corrupted when moved from one computer to another or from one drive to another on the same computer?

While doing some computer house cleaning, I decided to move the entire Dragon Magazine Archives file from one drive to another (on the same computer) and after the move when I tried to open the archive I got a message box telling me that a file was missing....
That I needed to re-install the file from the CD 2

Is this a good reason for keeping the DVDs after you have them stored on your computer?

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Mars
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Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 9:54 am

The magazine files themselves should be fine to transfer anywhere you want. I forget what the installation process is/does but it is possible that it drops a system file somewhere that if you move only the files, you will need to do a "reinstall" for the supporting software to work. Sometimes, programs will put something into the windows system directory or some other place so if you move them from one machine to another this file will most likely not get transfered (because no one keeps track of what gets dumped in there). When you then run the software, it will then try and use the file in the system directory and can't find it, etc.

If you use something like adobe acrobat to just view the dragon magazine files you shouldn't have a problem.

Kingofpain89
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Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 10:30 am

Mars wrote:I forget what the installation process is/does but it is possible that it drops a system file somewhere that if you move only the files, you will need to do a "reinstall" for the supporting software to work.

Correct. The Dragon Magazine Archive is not just .pdf files, it also installs an application. So if the files are moved, the application cant find the files. Some registry files may also be pointing to the wrong place depending on what all you moved. Uninstall it if you can, and then reinstall it to the new location.

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Gnat the Beggar
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Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 11:02 am

I did not move only the PDFs...
I moved the entire DM folder, so I recon you guys have it...

The file may be confused now, not knowing where to look....
I have to un-install then re-install.

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Dimitri Mazieres
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Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 4:25 pm

If you use the included browser to access the magazines (as opposed to directly opening the individual pdfs from an Explorer window), then probably the problem is that you need to correct the files' access path on your desktop/start menu icons, as they will try to find all the relevant data in their old locations.

To do so, right-click on the DMA icon, select Properties, and type the new route to the files (such as C:\Dragon\Files) on "Path".

Uninstalling/Reinstalling would also correct the problem

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mbassoc2003
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Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 5:03 pm

The built in browser is crap, and is it Vista compatable?
If you have a copy of Acrobat, you still have access to the same level of search. You can search the text within a single magazine, or the text within every magazine in a given folder.
You only really need the PDF files.

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faro
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Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 5:37 pm

. wrote:If you have a copy of Acrobat, you still have access to the same level of search. You can search the text within a single magazine, or the text within every magazine in a given folder.
You only really need the PDF files.

Yep. Works fine that way here, albeit just leaving the first disk in and not bothering to copy anything over is usually fine for me, too.

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mbassoc2003
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Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 5:56 pm

Disks? It came on disks? I thought it came from Bit Torrent. :mrgreen:

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Traveller
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Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 1:56 am

. wrote:The built in browser is crap, and is it Vista compatable?
If you have a copy of Acrobat, you still have access to the same level of search. You can search the text within a single magazine, or the text within every magazine in a given folder.
You only really need the PDF files.

I can confirm that the browser works perfectly fine in Vista.

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Xaxaxe
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Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 2:46 am

Gnat the Beggar wrote:Do the files get corrupted when moved from one computer to another or from one drive to another on the same computer?

The files themselves are likely fine; they are just PDFs. As others have mentioned, it's likely that the ridiculous proprietary browser system is all muffed up.

Ditch the browser (or ignore it) and just do what you want with the PDFs. The browser is so completely unnecessary as to be laughable: modern versions of Adobe Reader (and/or Preview for the Mac) do a much better job of searching than that goofy thing ever did.

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