Reinstalling Trainz
In this tutorial, I will tell you about how to re-install Trainz and what you need to back-up beforehand.
First thing to do...
The first thing you want to do is make a back-up copy of your userdata folder. To do this, you need to go to the root folder of trainz in Program Files/N3V Games/Railroad Simulator (or whatever version of Trainz you have). If you are running Trainz on a 64 bit version of Windows, the root file will be under Program Files (x86).
I'm this far into the root folder, now what?
Once you're in the root folder of the game, make a copy of the userdata folder and paste it wherever you want to (I put mine on the desktop). The main files you will need to keep are the "original" and "local" folders. These contain all content you have downloaded. You might want to keep your screenshots folder too.
Uninstalling
You uninstall the game like you would with any other computer program. You go into "start" and you locate Trainz and click on uninstall and let the uninstall wizard do its thing. After the uninstall wizard is finished, you can go back into Program Files and delete the root folder completely. All you need is the userdata folder.
Re-installing
Before you start, you MUST HAVE the serial number for your game. It is necessary for re-installation and you will need to add it in the options part of the start menu before you can actually launch the game.
Once you have uninstalled the game, you can re-install it with your disk that contains the original version of Trainz that you have. After installing it, you go into the launch screen of Trainz and click on the quit button. Pressing start, content or quick will make the Trainz asset database to update. After that's done, you go into the userdata folder in the root folder of trainz and add the "local" and "original" folders. Once you've done that, you need to go into content manager and click on "Extended Database Repair" and that will restore all of the content from those folders back into Trainz. It might take longest when it's scanning for faulty assets and an entire extended database repair can take up to at least 5 hours, depending on how much content you have installed.
Once it's all done repairing the asset database, Trainz should be all good to go. If you have re-installed the game after a bad patch install, patch your game to the more stable version before the newer one you had last before moving back your "local" and "original" folders. The patching process will be shorter if you add those folders after the patching is complete.
Once you have uninstalled the game, you can re-install it with your disk that contains the original version of Trainz that you have. After installing it, you go into the launch screen of Trainz and click on the quit button. Pressing start, content or quick will make the Trainz asset database to update. After that's done, you go into the userdata folder in the root folder of trainz and add the "local" and "original" folders. Once you've done that, you need to go into content manager and click on "Extended Database Repair" and that will restore all of the content from those folders back into Trainz. It might take longest when it's scanning for faulty assets and an entire extended database repair can take up to at least 5 hours, depending on how much content you have installed.
Once it's all done repairing the asset database, Trainz should be all good to go. If you have re-installed the game after a bad patch install, patch your game to the more stable version before the newer one you had last before moving back your "local" and "original" folders. The patching process will be shorter if you add those folders after the patching is complete.