Make AppData Read-Only

[Adam Random123]

Don't want renpy games to make folders in appdata so have made that read-only.
Some games work with no issue,
while some others dont have data persistent and keep on reverting to default settings. Some get fixed by rpyc below, whereas some crash saying they cant load the rpyc.

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And on this game Innocent Witches https://f95zone.to/threads/innocent-witches-v0-11-2-beta-fix3-sad-crab.330, it keeps on crashing with this error

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What can be done to fix this error, and is there a universal script to change default save location from Appdata/Roaming to within the game folder.

 

[Winterfire]

read only appdata
why what are you doing, appdata is the whole reason it exists. Where do you want software to write? on documents like back in 2006?

 

[Nadekai]

... ... AppData is a folder for... apps to write their data into so you can have it organized

 

[anne O'nymous]

Don't want renpy games to make folders in appdata so have made that read-only.

So, all the software that use it, and, well, they all use it, including Windows, as well as all those that need the temporary folder will not be able to save their data...
But let's be fair, it's not an issue for most of them, they generally have a fallback procedure. Oh, of course, it mean that their data are spread everywhere on the disk, instead of being located in a single place, what prevent to clean them time to time.

Some get fixed by rpyc below, whereas some crash saying they cant load the rpyc.

Well, starting the version 7.5.0/8.0 Ren'Py use a different version of pickles to generate the "rpyc" files, therefore obviously that it will crash time to time. Reason why anyone who know a bit what he's doing only deal with "rpy" files for this kind of things.

What can be done to fix this error, [...]

I'm tempted to say that the best way to fix this error is to not voluntarily break your whole OS...

The game rely on a multi-persistent object, probably to transfer the data from a season to another, and well, multi-persistent objects are stored in %AppData%, and in %AppData% only since their main interest is to be game independent.

and is there a universal script to change default save location from Appdata/Roaming to within the game folder.

The one you use (so wrongly) is supposed to be that...

 

[Winterfire]

Also keep in mind that not everything has a fallback procedure, there's a reason why appdata is invisible. You shouldn't mess with it.

Most software is meant to be installed, and once upon a time they saved the data locally... However, at some point Program Files became one of the many Windows folders that are protected, meaning you cannot save data there anymore. At that point it became a far west, with most of them saving on documents (funnily enough, some games saved on documents, but not on the windows folder called "Game Saves" ), now there's a standard which is appdata, and as the name suggests, it's data generated by applications, from save files to config.

More often than not, locking your whole appdata will simply soft break your applications, so if you were to open a game and change some settings, when you boot that game up again the settings will have been reverted to the default.

My suggestion is not to break your own system, and simply let appdata be appdata. If you want Ren'Py games specifically not to save on Appdata but locally, create or ask someone to make a mod for it... Setting your appdata to read only is like setting your house on fire because of a spider, when a much more reasonable option would have been to catch it and set it free in the wild.