[schreineradam]

I am just getting into XBMC and have set it up on two computers (one in the living room, one in the bedroom). I am changing a lot of settings getting everything just how I wanted, but I know, with all the checking of this option and the unchecking of that, I'm never going to get the settings exactly the same between the two.

I was wondering if there would be a way to simply sync the appdata between these two (using any of a number of syncing programs) and what problems I may run into if I were to try that.

Both machines are running Windows 7 and both have the same user names, but the actual video files will be stored on one machine and the other would be accessing them off the network. I have read into the MySQL solution to syncing some of the databases, but as far as I could tell that didn't sync the program settings. I'm not sure how the appdata is formatted and whether the information is fully qualified (for the lack of a better term I'm using control engineering talk) or if this would totally jack up both computer's appdata (for the lack of a better term... again).

Thoughts?

[jhsrennie]

There isn't much appdata apart from the library. If you look at the folder %appdata%\xbmc\userdata (press Windows-R, type "%appdata%\xbmc\userdata" and click OK and the folder should open) the key files are sources.xml and guisettings.xml. Sources.xml contains the data sources you've added, and guisettings.xml contains cosmetic details like what skin you're using.

The important data is the library, which contains all the info about the films and music you have. This is by default stored in SQLLite format in the Database folder. If you use MySQL you are effectively moving the database into a central MySQL server so all clients can share the same data. You can copy the database folder between PCs, but since both PCs can update their databases you risk overwriting changes made on the PC you're copying the database to. If you want a shared database MySQL is the best option.

JR

[schreineradam]

I guess my confusion then is what exactly will be synced with the MySQL method. I'm not sure really what all information the library stores.

My desire is to have the exact same experience with both of my setups, from skins and view options to sources and everything in between. When I change an option, say to update a library on startup, I am wanting that change to be synced between my two setups.

Maybe I'm just asking too much... but if it's possible it would be awesome.

Thanks for the help, btw.

[jhsrennie]

Generally once XBMC has been set up it doesn't change much from day to day. After all, how often do you change the skin?

Once you have the central MySQL database working, get one of your PCs working as you want, then copy the whole %appdata%\xbmc folder to the other PC. The two will now be identical. If you make any changes in the future just copy the xbmc folder again.

JR