Read Order
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When an internal and external file exists at the same path location, Read Order determines which version of a file is returned to the application when it is opened for reading or writing. External files are those located on the hard drive's normal filesystem, and Internal files are those located within the EXE's Virtual Filesystem.

Read Order may be changed using the right-click menu from the project file list.

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· Open external file first if exist

1. Thinstall will check first to see if the external file having the specified filename exists. If so, Thinstall will open the external file and return it to the application. This file will be unmanaged by Thinstall in anyway.

2. Thinstall will check to see if a cached version of the file exists in the cache directory. The cache directory is where files that have been written to are stored. The name of the cached version is based on a 64-bit hash of the filename's path. If the cached version of the file exists, Thinstall will open the cached version and return it to the application. If you have enabled cache encryption for the file, all reads and writes from the file will be decrypted and encrypted respectively so the application sees a normal file, while the user sees garbage if the file is examined externally.

3. If no cached version of the file exists, Thinstall will open the file using the compressed copy stored in the EXE. This file will be automatically decompressed as the application reads it. If the application opened the file for writing and no cached version exist, then Thinstall will decompress the internal version to the specified cache directory and open that file.

· Always read from internal version
In this case, Thinstall skips the above step 1.


· Open file with newest creation date
In this case, Thinstall opens the file from steps 1, 2, and 3 which has the newest creation date. This option should be considered carefully because the user's clock may be set incorrectly so external files may appear to be far in the future or past.

· Open file with oldest creation date
In this case, Thinstall opens the file from steps 1, 2, and 3 which has the oldest creation date. This option should be considered carefully because the user's clock may be set incorrectly so external files may appear to be far in the future or past.