Painkiller overdose pc save game directory?

[gargus]

Ok for 2 days I havent been able to get access to the PK overdose forum so Im just coming in this one.

I want to backup my saved games from painkiller overdose but I cant find the save game directory for it anywhere, where is it?

Thank you.

[Varus77]

Yes - it's one of those games with these stupid paths:
...:\Documents and Settings\your name\Lokal Settings\application data\Painkiller Overdose\Saves...

[gargus]

Jesus h christ! Id never have looked in there, thanks.

[kalme]

it's one of those games with these stupid paths

How's that stupid? It enables the game to run under a non-priviledged user account and is required to work properly under Vista.

[Varus77]

Maybe it's my personally freakin show but I don't like it anytime if programms, especially games, installing something in another directory as the one which I have directed for, e.g. Games/...
Over the years very often I've seen that after uninstalling a game many files were not deleted. I hate it to search for that files and directories. It's unhandy. And "gargus" was a good example for that.
There is no reason for to direct Saves or Screenshots etc. in another folder than the one that supposed for - the game itself. All in one place - that's the way. (especially for games!)
E.g. Company of Heroes - the saves are very huge and - right - in that stupid path. And the following of that? I'm running out of memory on my small Windows-drive. I like it to have all my Games on one drive...the games drive. It's large and fast.
And one complain at all: I hate it if programms are installing in folders without my agreement or even if they didn't asked....like Overdose.

It enables the game to run under a non-priviledged user account... and this wasn't possible e.g. with PK/BooH? (saves are in PK-folders)

and is required to work properly under Vista.
It's not my responsibility if Vista is that stupid. That means it would not work with the savegames in PK/BooH manner?

[kalme]

First of all: you can always move parts of your user profile (using the properties of that folder or tools like TweakUI) or your whole user profile (see here (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/236621/EN-US/)) to another disc if you need to place it somewhere with more free space.

The reason why "all in one place" is going to be seen less and less in the future is simply security. An immense amount of malicious software in the past was only possible due to the fact that users are running their machines with administrator accounts all the time. The problem is that once your computer is infected by a virus or trojan or whatever it can do everything your windows user can do. If you're an administrator, it will compromise your whole machine up to a point where it destroys your operating system and other user's accounts etc.

The goal is to have users working with restricted user accounts, as it should have been done in the first place (yes, blame Microsoft for that). Imagine a user clicks on a malicious e-mail attachment and infects the computer with a virus. When he's working under a non-priviledged account, the worst thing that can happen is that his user data is damaged/deleted. The worm won't be able to tamper with Windows, installed programs, or other user's data (like it would be the case when the user was working with adminstrator rights). You could then simply log on with a different user account, clean up the virus infection - done. Also, with restricted access to critical resources, it's much harder for worms etc. to spread over network drives or infect other devices.

I know that you're an experienced user and that it's highly unlikely that you would fall for a malicious e-mail or download a trojan horse to your computer, but 99 percent of the users aren't. And it's this vast majority that is responsible for the worm/virus attacks of the last years. People who are inexperienced, who don't update their software and Windows are the ones that profit the most from non-priviledged user accounts. Even with a not fully patched machine malicious software cannot do much damage - not only to the users themselves, but also to others. So I think we agree that this is a good thing.

Now come the problems. Working with administrator accounts is convenient. In fact, that's one of the reasons why it has been that way for a decade and longer. When you're working under a non-priviledged account, things are more complicated. You need an administrator to install new software (whether this is you or a another person is a different question). And - that's the important thing - you cannot write into application's folders. On Vista, you cannot even create a folder in the program files directory by default. The reason for that is simple: this is an area of the file system that is shared between users. If one user is able to write into this part of the disc, he can damage software for all other users too. So all users have their special folders where they (or software run by them) are allowed to do anything they want. If something goes bad, it doesn't harm other parts of the system.

It also helps a lot with other things. E.g. different people using the same computer. Think about it. When your son and you both use the same computer to play Painkiller, then your savegames/screenshots etc. are mixed up with the ones of your son. Even worse, you have to change settings every time you start the game (supposed you use different key bindings etc.) - isn't that annoying? With that kind of data being stored where it belongs to - in the user's profile! - all these problems are gone (e.g. in Overdose). Of course you could design your own user management in the game directory, but why would you do that? There's a standard place you don't have to care for rights or if it's there or not etc., you simply use it.

Back to your question. PK/BOOH does run on Vista without any problems. You have different choices for legacy software, because Microsoft put a load of mechanisms into Vista to make all these things work automatically without annoying the user (too much :D). And if it still doesn't work, you can always choose to run the application as administrator, which basically is identical to the behavior on XP with an administrator's account.

I don't say Vista's all shiny and glory, there are a lot of bugs and annoying things in it yet, but hats off to Microsoft for finally having the guts to force people (= software developers) to care for non-priviledge user accounts. If you're annoyed by Vista's popping up security dialogs, don't blame Bill, blame the company that wrote the software you're using, because they did a bad job. It's hard now to do this transition, for both developers (they have to learn it the hard way now if they didn't care for it before) and users (they have to deal with the bad software), but it will get better - and at the latest with the operating system after Vista's sucessor, when nobody remembers what XP is ;), it's only going to be that way, with no exceptions.

I have to agree though that handling this data needs improvement. For example, installers usually just remove what they initially installed (which leaves things like screenshots, configs etc. behind) - they should ask if the user wants to keep their data or not (some already do). Also, developers should provide easy access to those things. Writing a custom application to manage configs, screenshots and savegames is not that hard, or maybe they could even integrate it into the game itself. As I wrote, we're on the threshold to a new (or not so new but not yet used) concept of handling data and security, and software developers need to adapt to it too - they're also just human, you know :D

[fleabay]

I hate software that thinks its smarter than me and knows whats best.

Kalme musta got suckered into buying Vista.

[kalme]

Yeah I'm brainwashed already :D

[mask killer]

Yeah I'm brainwashed already :D
NOOOOOOOO not vista!!!

Time for Intervention
Hello my name is Mask killer. All together now Hello mask killer!!

I almost got vista one day but the sale person cried "don't do it"

[fleabay]

What is pathetic is that even though I don't use Vista, programs are being updated to use the stupid Vista ways. Its ridiculous that programs I have been using and grown accustom to are heel toeing the Vista methods. God **** Vista to hell.

[ilovepain84]

dude how do u use the console codes? or modify the commands? i get a error writing file when i save my assigned keys