C&C Generals & ZH won't launch if OneDrive is backing up the documents folder

It changes the location of the folder to the onedrive folder, not letting Generals launch, even with GenPatcher. GenPatcher will give an error.

[tintinhamans]

This is not related to the game at all but rather to OneDrive's "Files On-Demand" feature.

User should either disable files on-demand or use "always keep on this device" on the relevant folders.

[JeodC]

In the interest of keeping multiplatform in mind perhaps the Documents folder setup should be moved to the game install directory to maintain ease and portability, or use %APPDATA% to align with future XDG_CONFIG_HOME?

[tintinhamans]

In the interest of keeping multiplatform in mind perhaps the Documents folder setup should be moved to the game install directory to maintain ease and portability, or use %APPDATA% to align with future XDG_CONFIG_HOME?

I think this is not easily done at this point. If we do this then we would break compatibility with older versions of the game i.e. we would end up with two folders where maps/replays etc. are stored.

[xezon]

On Windows, by default, the User Data folder needs to stay exactly where it has been for 20 years, otherwise all users need to relearn this and they will have a hard time doing this.

[tintinhamans]

Also, the Steam workshop is currently downloading content to this folder so it would also break Steam workshop functionality.

[tintinhamans]

Maybe we should investigate using Windows Cloud Files API to "pin" the folder on creation (replicating the "always keep on this device" the user can also specify manually): API Documentation

Specifically cfsetpinstate: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/cfapi/nf-cfapi-cfsetpinstate

My suspicion is that the game does not launch because it does not understand the "placeholder" files that this functionality leaves when files are not available locally.

[dmgreeny]

One drive is so annoying for people who don't use it. And breaks things for people who do use it. Great job, Microsoft.

[tintinhamans]

One drive is so annoying for people who don't use it. And breaks things for people who do use it. Great job, Microsoft.

This issue should also occur with other providers that use this API e.g.: OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive, Box, Citrix ShareFile, Sync.com, pCloud, Egnyte, Amazon WorkDocs.

[tintinhamans]

Also good to note: the behavior that OneDrive does is not a redirection/symlink of the MyDocuments folder but an actual proper remapping of CSIDL_PERSONAL.

The game also uses CSIDL_PERSONAL to resolve the correct path of the MyDocuments folder so I do not think that this is the issue.