Templates Stumper

Recently rebuilt my computer with a SSD as the boot/Windows/C: drive. since These Solid State Disks are expensive as H#77, I set it up so that windows put the users directories on another disk, "B:" (you can automate this with an "unattended" install file when you repack an install DVD)
Now, I'm running windows 7, and I am running as an administrator.
Guild Wars cannot find my templates folder.
When I save a template, one of two things happens, seemingly at random:
1) '"The attempt to save the Skills Template named "\test" failed because the file could not be created/written to'"
2) a new directory in my guild wars install directory is created with a random 3-letter asian character name, containing "Guild Wars\Templates\Skills\test.txt"
Whichever occurs, it still cannot find anything when I attempt to load a template.
I have attempted manually creating both "b:\Users\(account name)\documents\Guild Wars\Templates\Skills" and "c:\Users\Miles\documents\Guild Wars\Templates\Skills" with no change.
Any Ideas on what to try next?

Check the permissions on the folder it's trying to write to.

Checked, and should be good.
Just in case, I gave "everyone" Full control.
Still no joy. created a folder in my install named "˝Ч" to put my test template in, and still couldn't see anything anywhere.

Under Windows 7, GW should by default create the "/Guild Wars/Templates" folder under your Profile's "My Documents" (or Documents) folder, usually created on the C: drive. If you have moved the user profile directories to another drive (e.g. drive D) it may be possible that the new "Documents" location does not have the proper file permissions set up for GW to write/create folders/files to.

I am also running Windows 7 and have also moved my user profiles to another drive partition (Drive D) -- had similar problems installing other games and/or saving games until I assign full permission rights to the files/folders under my profile directory (at the new location on D).

Also, I haven't fully researched this, but it seems under Windows 7 GW seems to have problems loading/saving templates under sub-folders that have the same name. eg:

"D:\Users\User Files\My Documents\Guild Wars\Templates\Skills\Hero Builds\Ritualist\Farmer"
"D:\Users\User Files\My Documents\Guild Wars\Templates\Skills\My Rit Char\Farmer"

So from inside GW if you save any template to
"\Hero Builds\Ritualist\Farmer" it will show up in the list under "\My Rit Char\Farmer".

But like I stated, I never researched this "problem" beyond discovering it. Don't know if it is the results of me redirecting the user profiles to D drive. And don't know if it has been fixed either). Once I realized what was happening. I simply renamed the duplicate folders (e.g. adding a 00 or 01 at the end of the name.)

I used something along this line to move my Users folder off the SSD:
link. Works fine. No problems with GW templates.

(Though I'm not sure how you can manage this without a reinstall at this point.)

As I have already indicated, under Windows 7 when you install GW it should by default create the "\Guild Wars\Templates\Skills" folder structure under "{User Profiles}\{user ID}\My Documents\" folder). If you have not actually reinstalled GW then this "\Guild Wars\Templates\Skills" folder structure may not have been properly created.

When you click either "Load from Template" or "Save to Template" GW should show the directory path to the "\Templates\Skills\" folder. Make sure the Template\Skills folders exist on that path and that your Login ID has the correct file access permissions.

But I agree with Chthon that reinstalling GW may be your best option. (Back up your templates/screen shots folders and GW.DAT file, uninstall GW, remove old GW install directory, create a new Install GW directory, move your GW.DAT into this new install directory, download then run the GW Client installer from that directory. From inside GW find out where the Template/Skills directories were created--restore your old templates to that location.)

To do it my way would require re-installing windows...

I actually did it the brute force method, regedit-ing all instances of "users" dirs to point to the "b:\users".
Being a sysad working with winXP & win2k machines (still!!!) I have become far to blase about regedit. but this is the first time I've run into issues on this install. . .
I will try a GW reinstall though. . .

[EDIT] I hate how long a new "-image" takes. grrrr.

Process Monitor is a sysad's best friend when it comes to fixing/migrating "broken" legacy apps to Windows 7. I had to do this for several applications at work that broke when we moved to Windows 7. But reinstalling GW would be quicker (but only if you can save/restore the GW.DAT file when you install GW).

Still no joy on the reinstall
And, The game installed with two subdirectories in the install folder:
"G:\Guild Wars\〈眙Ъ\Guild Wars", which is empty, and
"G:\Guild Wars\〈眙Э\Guild Wars", which is empty, all true install files being in "G:\Guild Wars\"
perhaps trying to build the \users\ directory structure, can't, and dropping it into the install dir with trash parent directories?

I'm not gonna be happy if I have to reinstall the whole os cause of this...
'course, I won't do that till I've beaten DA2, of course so it'll be awhile.

No help at all, but ...what the hell is going on there? o_O

Maybe you could try raising a support ticket with NCSoft, unless somebody here has seen anything like what you're describing.

Windows 7 should automatically put the GW templates, screenshots, etc, into a Guild Wars folder in "Documents".

But at any rate I think your main problem is the use of B: as your drive letter. B:, like A:, is reserved for a floppy drive - way back in the before-time many PCs had two floppies. If you can, get into Drive Management and change the drive letter to something higher than C:.

Well spotted, Quaker.

Whether that is the problem or not, why B:\ ?

To B:\ or not to B:\?
Because it is rarely used and thus less likely to be hit by an intruder,
And I didn't want it on D:\ which is usually reserved for an optical drive,
and it has been about 20 years since anyone had 2 floppy drives. . .
(It's bad enough that with my flash card reader in my drives go up to K:\)

Looks like I'm gonna be reloading Vindows. Again. Grr.

After an hour and a half of changing every occurrence of B:\ to E:\ in the registry, to match the newly renamed drive, I can report that:
No change has occurred.
I save to: "G:\Guild Wars\鶨޾\Guild Wars\Templates\Skills"
and cannot reach any templates anywhere from in-game.
And have heard nothing from NCsoft support.
*sigh* DA2 unlocks in a few hours, at least. so I should quite worrying.

I think it could be because you are using non-standard characters in the path (ie. 〈眙Ъ or "˝Ч or 鶨޾ depending on the post ). I know that I've had trouble naming templates that use non-standard characters in the template name, so the trouble may extend back to the path name as well.

"I" am not using non-standard characters in the path.
When I try and save a template, the game creates a path with the non-standard characters as a subdirectory of the main install directory, instead of putting it in the "Users" directory as it should.
I don't know where these non-standard characters are coming from, or what they stand for, or why the game can't seem to go to c:\users, b:\users, or e:\users.

Just for giggles, run the game in XP mode and then save a template. Betcha it saves in the install directory then - doesn't solve the bizarre non-standard character thing, though.

Think it's anything to do with your custom W7 install disks?

That may well be, but for compatibility, the BIOS still (probably) interprets A: or B: as a floppy drive. That's why B: is not offered as choice when specifying a drive letter (in Disk Manager, for example), and things like Flash drives or USB drives never come up as B:.

I don't think you need to re-install windows, but you may want to uninstall Guild Wars and use something like CCleaner to remove all traces of GW from the registry before installing GW again. Also, this is the second time I've heard of people having trouble trying to redirect Windows User folders and run GW - it would be good to hear from anyone who has successfully done it - especially as I'm bound to get an SSD at some point and may want to do that myself.

Changed gw.dat to gw.bak
uninstalled Guild Wars
Deleted everything in the G:\Guild Wars directory except for Gw.dat (this includes the 5 sub-directories
鶨޾
˱Ч
ĉЧ
ĄЧ
〈盵Ъ

Ran CCleaner. fixed all registry issues.
Ran GWSetup.exe
- installed to G:\Guild Wars
WITHOUT HAVING RUN GUILD WARS OR DONE ANYTHING ELSE, my G:\Guild Wars directory now contains:
a subdirectory named 〈眣Э
Guild Wars.lnk
gw.bak
gw.dat
gw.exe
gw.tmp
THEN Guild wars auto-launched at 1024x768 resolution.
logged in, waited while GW loaded the data for embark reach. (450MB @ 400KB/sec)
Saved my character's skills as "test"
"the templete test has been saved.
attempted to load a template: empty directory.
closed Guild Wars
G:\Guild Wars has gained an extra subdirectory; ΟP
Within this directory is the test.txt file that should be in one of two locations:
"E:\Users\(username)\Documents\Guild Wars\Templates\Skills" if it reads the user directory from the registry
or
"C:\Users\(username)\Documents\Guild Wars\Templates\Skills" if it is hard-coded.

*sigh*
ran the GameAdvisor NCsoft support asked me to yesterday, and emailed them back the report as the support site was down yesterday. Haven't heard back yet.
gonna change gw.bak back to gw.dat now and due some of the Lieutenant's quests, as that is all I can really do without templates.