v3.0.3

GameVault-Relocator v3.0.3 Release: Major Upgrade to PyQt6 with Enhanced Flexibility and Reliability

Hello everyone!

I'm excited to announce the release of GameVault-Relocator v3.0.3 — a significant step forward from the 2.x series (last stable: v2.1.6).

This version brings a full migration to PyQt6, many quality-of-life improvements, greater flexibility in how you choose destinations, better symlink scanning, and a more robust overall experience.

If you're on 2.x, the built-in update checker should prompt you automatically (Windows users: it handles .exe downloads and replacement cleanly).
Manual download → Releases page

Linux/macOS users: see the updated instructions in the Help popup or README.

🚀 New Features

• Flexible Destination Selection with Optional Structure Preservation

  • New checkbox: "Preserve source folder structure" (checked by default)
    → When enabled: select a root drive/folder from dropdown → tool recreates the full relative path on destination
    (e.g. E:\LaunchBox\Games\Sony PS2 → F:\LaunchBox\Games\Sony PS2)
  • When disabled: manually select the exact destination folder → full control, no enforced structure
    → Addresses user requests for more flexible relocation workflows

• Drive Selection Combo Box

  • Quick dropdown of detected local, fixed, and network drives
  • Cleaner list: excludes most removable/non-fixed drives

• Improved Preview (Dry Run) Mode

  • Generates detailed preview log with file paths and estimated total size in GB
  • Robocopy preview fallback → switches to native Python counting when preview is active

• Upgraded Symlink/Junction Scanner

  • Prefers fast system commands (dir /AL /S on Windows, find -type l on Unix)
  • Aggressive exclusion of noisy/system paths (WindowsApps, $Recycle.Bin, /proc, /sys, etc.)
  • Better distinction between symlinks and junctions on Windows
  • Real-time result updates + colored completion status
  • Safe Python os.walk fallback when needed

• Update System Polish

  • Precise version comparison via packaging library
  • Shows days since your version was released in prompt
  • Cleaner download/cancel experience

📈 Improvements

• UI/UX Modernization (PyQt6 migration)

  • Smoother rendering, better high-DPI support, future-proofing
  • Consistent dark theme
  • Fixed button sizes, better alignment, improved Help popup examples
  • Semi-transparent overlay on background image in About dialog

• Performance & Reliability

  • Robocopy /MT threads now capped dynamically (min(cores, 32))
  • File move retry logic (5 attempts) for locked/in-use files
  • More robust empty directory cleanup with fallback commands
  • Timestamped per-operation logs
  • Better path quoting / special character handling

• Cross-Platform

  • Improved macOS/Linux symlink creation & drive detection
  • More accurate rsync progress monitoring on non-Windows

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Symlink scanner: reduced false positives, better error handling for inaccessible paths
• Robocopy log parsing: fixed encoding issues during live progress
• File size calculation: handles missing/inaccessible files gracefully
• Source folder removal: fallback rmdir /S /Q when shutil.rmtree fails on Windows
• Update downloader: proper cancellation handling
• UI: progress label clears correctly, scan bar hides reliably
• General: more consistent exception logging with tracebacks

⚠️ Notes / Breaking Changes

• Requires PyQt6 if running from source (pre-built Windows .exe is self-contained)
• Destination behavior now optional (structure preservation is toggleable) — double-check the checkbox if you want the old 2.x behavior
• Preview mode no longer attempts Robocopy (falls back to Python for accurate simulation)
• Always back up important libraries before relocating!

📊 Expected / Observed Improvements from Testing

• Platforms tested: Windows 10/11, Ubuntu 24.04, macOS Sonoma (development VMs + native runs)
• Large library relocation: Handled (and expected to handle reliably) game collections >500 GB with full directory structure and symlink preservation
• Symlink scanning speed (large drives, ~400k–800k items):
  • v2.x: full Python walk → often 4–7+ minutes when many system folders present
  • v3.x: fast system command + exclusions → expected 0.8–2.5 minutes in most realistic cases (~2–5× faster)
  • Fallback Python walk still improved thanks to early filtering
• File transfer phase (~12k–20k files, 400–700 GB):
  • Native Python: ~45–140 seconds baseline (highly disk-dependent)
  • Robocopy /MT enabled (Windows): expected 3–10× faster transfer in real-world scenarios (especially many small files or SSD→HDD)
• Other gains:
  • Far fewer noisy/irrelevant symlink results
  • More reliable empty folder cleanup
  • Smoother UI during long operations (PyQt6)

These estimates come from:

• code path analysis of the optimizations
• small-to-medium real runs during development
• rough simulation of traversal/move workloads

Real-world results vary depending on hardware (HDD/SSD/NVMe), file count vs size, antivirus, network drives, etc.
→ If you run large operations, please share your before/after timings in Discussions or Issues — it helps validate and improve future releases!

Thank you to everyone who reported issues and gave feedback — this release is much stronger because of you.

Star the repo if it's useful, and happy game-library organizing! 🎮

Shout outs to the beta testers and to @Welz and @Buffalo716 for some of the new features!

— ScriptedBits
GitHub Repo
Download v3.0.3

Full Changelog: v2.1.6...v3.0.3