Better utorrent support for removable media

[zxycba]

I am using utorrent on a removable USB Flash drive, by following the directions in the FAQ:

3.4 How can I use µTorrent on a USB key or other removable drive?

to place a copy of the settings.dat file on the USB media. One problem I'm having with this method is that when I go to another computer, the drive letter for the flash media may not be the same as the previous computer's drive letter for the flash media.

This has the effect of utorrent not being able to locate the downloaded files from the torrent, that are also on the flash media.

I was able to come up with a hacked solution, by editting the resume.dat file in a hex editor and changing the download path from "I:\location\of\downloaded\files\from\torrent" to "..\location\of\downloaded\files\from\torrent" for the torrent. I was then able to resume the torrent on another system, without having to change the download location for the torrent.

Note: utorrent is located in a subdirectory <driveletter>:\utorrent on the flash media.

Could utorrent be changed so that it compares the download location with the location with where utorrent was started from, and then if the drive letter matches, it changes the download location to be relative to where utorrent is located?

[JigPu]

Rather than changing the executable, I would suggest a change to the FAQ. Auto-detecting the correct drive letter may work, but I have a sneeking suspicion it could end up screwing up in some cases. A change to the FAQ to mention that the option "Put new downloads in" should be set to a relative path though would make sure downloads always work regardless of the drive letter.

Of course, this dosen't work if the torrent has already been started (it would require manual modification as you did). However, as long as the user sets this before starting any downloads it will work fine.

JigPu

[Firon]

I don't think you CAN use relative paths there... Give it a shot and see if it works, in which case I'll update the FAQ to reflect that.

[ColdArmor]

It would be nice if we could run the app & set a location for settings.dat

[slayers]

Agreed, ColdArmor. This has been requested before, it's just another reason why specifying your own default folder location is useful. I know it goes against Microsoft's idea with multiple user configurations but I just hate the whole %appdata% concept thing.

[JigPu]

I did some extra checking to be sure (I did a quick check before even mentioning the possibility), and it appears to almost work. It's not ready for adding to the FAQ yet, but it could be with a bugfix.

"." and ".." always work -- data is saved relative to the location of the opened .torrent file

.torrent opened from C:\Documents and Settings\ME\My Documents\Torrents\Blah.torrent

Put New Downloads In "..\..\.."

Blah.avi saved in C:\Documents and Settings\

"\" works only if the the torrent dosen't contain a subdirectory -- data is saved relative to the location of the opened .torrent file

.torrent opened from D:\Random\Torrents\Blah.torrent

Put New Downloads In "\Torrent Data"

Blah.avi saved in D:\Torrent Data\

Note that I can't find a torrent with more than one file stored in the root (as opposed to storing them both in one subdirectory) so I'm not sure if either method works with this kind of torrent (if they exist)... Also, for "." and ".." to be effective for a flash drive, you have to save the .torrent file to the flash drive -- though I'm pretty sure you'd need to anyway

JigPu