There are two aspects to moving EpicTable to a new computer:
  • Moving your EpicTable data
  • Activating your EpicTable license on the new computer


Of these, the second is the one I hear about most often, so let's tackle that first. 


Activating Your EpicTable License on a New Computer

Moving your existing license file (not your key, as discussed below, but an encrypted file in your user folder) to the new computer won't work. This isn't because EpicTable is licensed to the computer--it's licensed to you personally. It's just a safeguard to make sure a key doesn't "get loose in the wild". 


Do you still have your license key?

The license key is that set of numbers, letters, and dashes that looks something like this:
XXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX-XXXXXX


If you still have this, you should be able to just enter it in the EpicTable license registration dialog as normal. If not, or if it's rejected, send a message to support@epictable.com with your name and email address. I can lookup your existing key or issue a new one. 


Moving Your EpicTable Data

The other part about moving EpicTable is moving the data from your existing games. Please, please, don't recreate your games--I've seen the amount of work some of you have put into your games, and it would kill me to see you redo all that. EpicTable has a mechanism to move your game data. Warning: just copying it by yourself is likely to cause an issue due to how your in-game resources--maps, characters, etc.--are assocated with you. It's best to let EpicTable do it. 


Using a network or removable drive to move your EpicTable data

You can use EpicTable to move your data by having it store your data on a network drive or removable drive. There's another article that discusses this: Choosing Where to Store Your EpicTable Data. Once you've done that, you can point your new computer to that new location (which is what I do when I want two computers to be able to use the same data), or if it's a one-time move, you can copy your files to a folder on the new computer and then use the same approach outlined in the article above to point EpicTable to the new folder.


Protecting Your EpicTable Data

Make sure you have your EpicTable data folder backed up. If you're switching to a new computer, make sure you don't reformat the drive of the old one until you've moved your data. All the game data is on the GM's computer, not somewhere in the cloud (unless of course you're using Dropbox or something as your data folder), so if the old machine is gone, your game data is gone as well. By default, your EpicTable data is at:
C:\Users\[Your UserName]\AppData\Local\Realityforge\EpicTable\1
As mentioned above, you can change this location if you like. Note that your AppData folder is hidden by Windows by default. You can see it if you show hidden files and folders in Explorer, or if you manually type AppData into the Explorer address bar when you're in your personal data folder (e.g., C:\Users\[Your UserName]).


Recap

  1. Know where your EpicTable data folder is and always make sure it's part of your backup routine.
  2. If you move EpicTable, the cleanest way is by changing the data folder to something that syncs to both computers.
  3. If you run into problems that are going to take you more than an hour to dig out of, open a support ticket or email me at support@epictable.com (which is effectively the same thing as opening a ticket).
-- John