Adding a 2nd PC, shared resources, setup checklist? Different LB versions?

LightBurn Software Questions
1

I’ve been running on a single PC with all settings, libraries, files stored locally (C:) with scheduled backups to a NAS device.

Currently setting up a second PC for the shop and I’d like to keep the two PCs synced as best as I can.

The network/share drive setup is simple enough and I don’t want to confuse this topic with that.

What I’m seeking is a sort of checklist slash how-to on the Lightburn specific files I should keep on the share and how best to set that up for reliable use. It’s been long enough since I first set up the original workstation that I can’t remember clearly everything I had to configure. Devices, Material Library, Art Library, App preferences, SHX fonts, etc. Can those be moved to a network share and then “re-linked” to an existing install? What am I overlooking?

I have everything working well now so it would be nice to keep it that way. Not that I’m afraid to start over, but if I can avoid it…

Also, would it be problematic to have two different versions of Lightburn? One on each PC. I’m still on 1.4.05 with the old computer but wouldn’t mind trying 1.6 on one of them (which one?) if it doesn’t cause issues.

The NAS is a Synology and both PCs are recently running Win11 (from 10), which broke my local backups (damn you Microsoft!), and from my initial research seems Synology Drive may be the answer to my backup and file sync question. OneDrive is not an option. Cortana and Edge can join OneDrive in the Abyss.

2

Important: install same system fonts also.

3

Fonts…yeah… Time for a font manager, I think. I have several thousand. Probably gonna try FontBase and see how I like it. I’ve never used a font manager before.

4

I don’t have a right answer for you, but I’ve seen several topics here complaining about files that are not read/identified (corrupted) by other computers when there supposedly shouldn’t be any problems.
I have also seen that sometimes the causes are changes in location or storage of files that end up becoming corrupted.

One idea that I’m not sure will work is:
Use a location that both computers have access to. If all files, libraries, etc. are saved in that location, I’m convinced that the next time you need to access those files, Lightburn will look for them there.
But in principle, only a developer will be able to fully clarify your issue.

5

My intent is to put the shared resources on a mapped network drive, so the path would (should) be fixed. I actually already have the mapped drives done. Both PCs even use the same drive letters.

Although I haven’t tried Synology Drive yet. I’m not sure what options/features is has or how it does what it does.

It may well be sufficient to simply use the mapped drives and let LB do what it needs to but, again, not sure how or when or what it does if I would happen to have a session open on both machines accessing the same resource(s).

6

I have a Synology operating as a NAS box. I can’t be at both machines at once to test, but here is what I think will happen…

  1. Machines A & B fetch a file from the box. they both succeed because no file locking is required in a read operation.
  2. Machine A begins writing to the box.
  3. Machine B then begins writing to the box. It fails because the file is locked for writing.
  4. Machine B tries again and succeeds, because Machine A completed.

Read/Write is controlled by Windows. Lock/Unlock is controlled by Synology.

This is where it can get tricky. Archival backups should be done only when nobody is using any of the computers.

Think of it as two computers sharing the same hard drive. That should keep you out of trouble.

As for which Lightburn files should be on the shared drive, that is for somebody else to answer.

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