Merge & Combine Folders Solution Found

[Darre]

Originally Posted by dacujo

How do you actually create a junction in Vista?

google is your friend

[megadofer]

If i use a folder located in the same PC i haven't problems but if i want to put a folder located on another PC i have problems...
My situation:
I have C:/Movies
and i have another folder located in //pc2/series
When i see my network i can go to my series folder and see it without problems. But when i do C:/Movies how to "Link Source" and then i put //pc2/series to a drop junction.
My WindowsXP creates this junction but inside of "series" creates a link named "target" to series again and this can't appear on mediaportal movies because it's a link...
And so it creates a folder "junction" to my inmediatly level up C:/Movies
Somebody have the same problem? It's normal?
Thanks!

[infinityloop]

@megadofer if you would have had a look at the manual, then you would know that junctions can only be created on your LOCAL HDD's and not on other PCs/networkdrives/shares

[megadofer]

Excuse me !!!
I go directly to read junctions paragraph
It's a pity... It's not possible to do something similar to junction with the network?
Thanks

[AlcoNaft]

2megadofer - in NTFS 5 hard links to the files can be done only inside one volume. Junction to folders can be done for the local computer volumes. But I have good news for you, Vista has new version of NTFS and can create junction (or better to call them "shortcuts") to any accessible file object on the computer or network. Try it, may be you will find it usefull.

[JimmyBoy]

Hi,

I am looking at using Media Portal and this is something that interests me as I too would want to do something similar. Now I havent even used Media Portal yet so I may be jumping the gun a bit so, correct me if ive gone way off-topic!

It strikes me that it would be reasonablly easy for the developers to implement a solution directly into MP. Surely if you was just allowed to add directories to an internal list, and then MP would take the contents of said drive(s) and place them internally in it's database, and any search or other types of fuctions would reference the database so you would see all appropriate files (in appropriate sections, ie movies / music) displayed.

For example, when setting up, you would enter a part of MP to specify directories, with an "Add" and "Remove" button. You could then specify for example :

D:\Movies
D:\Music

E:\Movies

F:\Movies

G:\Music

H:\Movies
H:\Music

Media Portal would then scan all these directories and import them into it's database which it then uses internally. You would also want some kind of "Watch" so that MP would scan these folders say every day / week / month, so that any new material added to the directories would be imported into MP's database. So you would goto "Movies" in MP and you would see all the material from D:, E:, F:, G: and H: displayed to you.

This is what WinAMP does and I dont see why the same thing couldnt be done in MP.

Sorry if I have totally missed the point! hehe

Thanks

[ieGod]

MP already does this JimmyBoy, but you have to use their database to track your files. This is not the same as Winamp's "database" or more accurately "playlist view". You have to go through the (in my opinion) painstaking task of adding them to the DB ensuring all the proper information is set.

That's not what most of us in this thread want. What we want is a simple way to make it appear as though the content of two or more folders spanned across multiple locations (drives, subfolders, etc) can be accessed from one consistent view without needing to import it into any kind of database.

If you're familiar at all with linux its similar to the features that Samba allows. It's a very simple thing to implement, really, and hopefully it gets included in future releases. For now I find it a pain to have to manually "junction" each of my movie folders because I shouldn't be forced to use things like genres.

[backslash]

Originally Posted by Redfuture

I know this problem has plagued a lot of MP users including myself, that like the ease of use of "shares" vs databases when viewing their movies and music. The problem is having to view collections of media in separate folders vs all in one folder.

This solution does work, but there is a catch, all drives need to be NTFS and on the same computer. The solution is creating junctions across the system, this is very easy to do and almost as simple as making a shortcut.

Junctions can even be seen across a network, like if the folders were really there, they just can't be combined across one. Make sure to read all the cautionary things regarding junction points before you begin.


This is a very user friendly GUI and great info on using it:

Link Shell Extension
Link Shell Extension

Great solution!

Thanks!

backslash