PT unable to access the right folder

Question

Today, an update patch got automatically installed in my PT 9.2. As it opened up, I was taken aback when it could not find any of my projects or resources or window collections. As I played around with it a bit, I did a S/R for a couple of the resources and found out that these resources as well as settings files were all being stored in the D:\ root folder instead of the D:\My Paratext 9 folder that I was using all this time. Tried doing a reset of settings with Shift-Open PT; when that didn’t work I uninstalled all versions of PT and cleared the AppData\Local of all folders connected with PT. Despite all that, when re-installing it still chooses the PT folder as D:\ and says it is an upgrade of an earlier PT 9 installation and the folder can’t be changed. Anyone faced this issue or knows how to change the folder? Machine on Windows 11.

Answer 1

Paratext stores the location of the data folder in the Windows Registry. This must be edited if you want to change the location of the folder. I don’t know how Windows 11 handles the Registry Editor program, but in Windows 10 you can find the registry information for Paratext at:
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Paratext\8 (or 9)
Windows stores the location of the settings file in that key.

Screenshot 2022-10-01 10.47.01909×290 21 KB

Comments

anon848905:

The “normal” way to change the folder would be to move the folder to a different location. Then when you start Paratext it will ask you where the folder is.

Note that we have removed this from Paratext as we think it causes this exact problem where a Paratext update changes the location of the settings folder.

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Thank you so much anon848905. After editing the registry as you outlined, it is now accessing the correct folder.

Chris

Answer 2

Be aware that the old process for changing the location of the Paratext Projects directory was to close Paratext, move the folder, restart Paratext and indicate where the folder is located.

This process works UNTIL the next time Paratext is updated. Then Paratext looks at the Windows registry to check where the folder should be located and uses the registry information. This means that if you simply move the folder, the process will need to be repeated every time Paratext is updated.

We have run into this issue when teams install Paratext 9 (creating a My Paratext 9 Projects folder) and then copy the My Paratext 8 Projects folder over and try to point to that folder. Each time Paratext updates it will point back to the folder created when Paratext was installed. And if it doesn’t exist it looks like it creates a new (empty) folder. One solution to this situation is to simply copy the files from My Paratext 8 Projects into the My Paratext 9 Projects folder that is expected.

If you want to move the folder after Paratext has been installed you will need to modify the registry.

Answer 3

I’m trying to understand this issue, but my experience is a bit different than anon848905’s description. I recently installed Paratext 9.2 in a Win10 VM and successfully pointed it to my Linux Paratext8Projects directory via the “old” instructions: Rename or delete the default My Paratext 9 Projects folder, and then start PT9 as Admin user, and browse to the folder I wanted to use, permanently mounted in a VM shared folder.

To cover all bases I then checked the (Windows) registry to be sure my custom Projects folder location was recorded there, per How to change PT8 data storage location AFTER installing. Indeed, PT9.2 did automatically update the registry entry (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Paratext\8\Settings_Directory) correctly.

But each time I apply an update patch to PT 9.2 the registry entry reverts to C:\My Paratext Projects. My reading of anon291708’s and anon848905’s comments sounds like if I edit the registry to set the custom path it will stick, but this is not what I’m seeing.

anon291708 mentioned that the point-to-custom-location trick has been removed, but I’m still seeing it with the PT 9.2.20 patch. Perhaps it has been removed in PT 9.3 (which won’t be sent automatically to “all users” until January, as I understand).

At that point will tweaks to the registry remain permanent, or will a custom Paratext Projects folder path still revert automatically? I don’t think it’s a good idea to expect people to edit the registry if they need to locate their Projects folder on a second drive. But many users have good reasons for doing this.

Related question: Is there a way to specify a custom location for the Paratext Projects folder on first install of Paratext on a new computer… and would it stick?

Comments

KimB:

Is there a way to specify a custom location for the Paratext Projects folder on first install of Paratext on a new computer… and would it stick?

Yes, that is the way that should always work.

As near as we can tell, this problem is a “quirk” with the Windows installer. I don’t think changing the registry entry actually fixes the issue (since that is what Paratext used to do). Maybe the Windows installer keeps track of the registry entries it originally wrote and reuses that? We don’t really know why this happens, and, admittedly, we’re not even 100% certain this is the cause.