GSE exists in two parts. The mod installed in your Addons folder and a settings file stored in your WTF folder. When you first install GSE, it creates the settings file first off. When you remove GSE, WoW doesn’t remove this file. If you dont remove it manually, then this will retain all your settings and macros. When you reinstall GSE, all your stuff is back immediately.
While this is amazing functionally, it creates a problem. It means that uninstalling and reinstalling the mod to solve a problem will do a total of nothing. Why simply because the problem will be in the settings file and after you reinstalled, if you did nothing about this file, it will still be there. The number of posts that say I uninstalled and reinstalled - all you did was waste your own time and waste the person reading your problem. GSE is not Windows. Reinstalling wont randomly fix your issue. Fixing your issue will fix your issue.
This file exists in two forms. a GSE.lua file and a GSE.lua.bak file. These files are located in the c:\path\to\World of Warcraft\WTF\Account\YOURACCOUNTNAMEHERE\SavedVariables\ folder. How these two operate is not something that GSE controls but WoW controls. (This is important and understanding this will mean that this skill is transferable to any other mod you want to backup the setup for.) When you load WoW, it looks at all the mods in your addon folders and then loads the appropriate settings files. In GSE’s case GSE.lua. It then does everything in RAM (computer memory) until you exit and close WoW via the exit commands. When you exist, it copies the existing GSE.lua file to GSE.lua.bak and then saves the current settings as GSE.lua Note: this is exiting the game not logging off. Logging off wont do anything to these files until you exit.
This gives you a few interesting possibilities.
- if something goes crazy and you are still in game, you can copy off the existing GSE.lua file before any changes are made. You could also ALT+F4 or /reload to reset GSE.
- if you /reload you will wipe any changes you have made since you first loaded WoW. If the game crashes this also means the same behaviour will occur. GSE cant “fix” this as this is how Blizzard wrote WoW to behave.
- if you load in and things have gone to pot, you can immediately copy the GSE.lua.bak file somewhere and then Alt+F4 and copy this .bak file to GSE.lua.bak This Window of time is critical. If you exit the game you will overwrite the .bak file and you will not be able to roll back from that point.
This is really useful when you import a crap macro and it breaks your library. You can undo the problem a few ways now before it becomes permanent.
Remember that WoW only reads this file when it loads up the first time and only writes this file when it exits. It does this for EVERY MOD YOU USE not just GSE.