Installing

[Rezwankhan527]

How do I install Hive ?

[ATN69]

This is what Rob wrote in Another thread yesterday. Hope you find this useful.

Postby #rob; Tue Oct 27, 2015 11:58 pm
Re: Hive not discoverable


It may sound confusing, but it's actually a pretty easy system.

The Hive.data folder needs to be in the same folder as each plugin file, e.g. Hive(x64).dll.

There are often permission issues, especially if the Hive.data folder is inside a "system folder". Windows is very protective of those and doesn't give every host and/or every host extension (=plugin) sufficient permissions to access (even subdirectories of) system folders. This leads to "missing resources" or "can't be saved" errors.

So put the Hive.data folder in a place where Windows is less protective, what works best is somewhere inside the user path.
For example, you could "collect" all u-he .data folders like so:

C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\u-he Data\
C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\u-he Data\Diva.data\
C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\u-he Data\Hive.data\
C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\u-he Data\Zebra2.data\
etc.

Once the Hive.data folder has been moved there, it's (obviously) no longer in the plugin directory with the Hive.dll.
To make up for that, you need to create a shortcut and re-name it to "Hive.data".
This shortcut needs to sit beside the Hive.dll and must lead to the "real" Hive.data folder in its new location:

For example:
C:\Program Files\VstPlugins\u-he\
C:\Program Files\VstPlugins\u-he\Hive.dll
C:\Program Files\VstPlugins\u-he\Hive.data --> Shortcut leads to --> C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\u-he Data\Hive.data\

So every time your host (or plugin loaded in the host) tries to access the C:\Program Files\VstPlugins\u-he\Hive.data\ folder, it will not find it (because the folder no longer exists). Instead, it will find the shortcut C:\Program Files\VstPlugins\u-he\Hive.data and follow it to the "real" location at C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\u-he Data\Hive.data\ where it will have all the files and permissions it needs.

A default Windows installation will install several plugin formats:
VST2 32-bit, VST2 64-bit, AAX 32-bit, AAX 64-bit.

The VST2 32/64-bit plugins are installed wherever the user installs them to. Following the example above, the 32-bit version would be at C:\Program Files\VstPlugins\u-he\Hive.dll. It's up to the user to decide if the 64-bit version is installed into the same folder as the 32-bit version or into a different path, maybe C:\Program Files\VstPlugins 64\u-he\Hive(x64).dll.

If the 64-bit version is in the same path as the 32-bit version then all is good.

If the 64-bit verison is in another path than the 32-bit version, then there will NOT be a copy of the Hive.data folder in the 64-bit directory. There will already be a shortcut named "Hive.data" alongside the Hive(x64).dll file, and it will be pointing to the OLD Hive.data folder that was installed to the 32-bit directory. This shortcut needs to be updated as well, so that it also points to the NEW Hive.data path inside the C:\Users\ directory.

It's basically the same for AAX and VST3. If you don't use them, forget about it. If you use them, make sure you update their Hive.data shortcuts as well. These are the default directories (dictated by the formats):

AAX 64-bit: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Avid\Audio\Plug-Ins\
AAX 32-bit: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Avid\Audio\Plug-Ins\
VST3 64-bit: C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\
VST3 32-bit: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VST3\

You can find a probably somewhat better written set of instructions in our FAQ system:
http://u-he.com/fwd/windows-permissions

Cheers,
Rob
u-he | Support | FAQ | Patch Library

[Teksonik]

That was his thread that Rob was responding to........if it didn't sink in then........