ROM (also known as "Kickstart" on the Amiga) are stored in the "Shared/rom" subdirectory of the emulation-specific directory of the Amiga Forever and C64 Forever distribution or installation.

In the case of Amiga Forever, the same "Shared" directory also contains other Amiga operating system files, such as boot floppy disk images (which are in "Shared/adf"), which among others are referenced as shared components by RP9 titles.

On a current (Amiga Forever 2005 and higher) Windows installation, "Shared/rom" is in "Amiga Files".

Similarly, 8-bit system ROMs are installed by C64 Forever in "Shared/rom", inside "CBM Files". Internally in C64 Forever the "CBM" tag is used for the directory name (instead of "C64") to better reflect supports for a variety of 8-bit systems by Commodore Business Machines (CBM).

Amiga Forever and C64 Forever respectively have an Open Folder/Amiga Files and Open Folder/CBM Files command in the File menu, and a Restore System Files option to reset the files in case they were damaged.

Access by Amiga Forever Users

In general, it should be considered that within the emulation environment as it comes preconfigured in Amiga Forever on Windows it is normally not necessary to manually locate system ROM and other files, as these are automatically referenced from the Amiga Forever configuration editor (right-click a title and select Edit). If an emulation site mentions that ROM and operating system files can be found in Amiga Forever, then this is certainly true, however it is also true that the emulation itself has been preconfigured so that no additional adjustments or copying of files are required. Emulation applications such as WinUAE and WinFellow can automatically detect these Amiga Forever files too. If there is a problem involving this detection, or with the installation, then that specific issue (e.g. two instances of WinUAE installed on the same system) should probably be addressed first.

Technical Reference

The exact location of the emulation directory depends on whether the files have been installed or not:

• After installation of Amiga Forever 2005 (or newer) on a Windows system, the directory (inside the "Amiga Files" folder) is referenced by the %AMIGAFOREVERDATA% environment variable
• Even when not installed, in Amiga Forever 2008 (or newer), the "Amiga Files" directory is located at the root of the Amiga Forever CD or DVD.
• C64 Forever is similar, except that the environment variable is named %C64FOREVERDATA%

For example, the full path (starting with an environment variable) of a 1.3 ROM of a current Amiga Forever installation on a Windows system is "%AMIGAFOREVERDATA%\Shared\rom\amiga-os-130.rom". Expanded to an absolute path, on a Windows Vista or Windows 7 system this would be something like "C:\Users\Public\Documents\Amiga Files\Shared\rom\amiga-os-130.rom". In a C64 Forever installation the path to the C64 Kernal ROM would be "%C64FOREVERDATA%\Shared\rom\c-64-kernal.rom", or (expanded) "C:\Users\Public\Documents\CBM Files\Shared\rom\c-64-kernal.rom".

Older Versions of Amiga Forever

Amiga Forever versions 1.0 to 6.0 differed from newer (2005 and higher) versions in that there was no "Amiga Files" architecture. The "Emulation" data directory was installed in "Program Files" (e.g. inside "C:\Program Files\Cloanto\Amiga Forever").

Amiga Forever CDs before Amiga Forever 2008 had the "Shared" content inside directory named "Emulation" instead of "Amiga Files".

Additional Information

Within "Amiga Files", WHDLoad ROMs are under "Shared/dir/System/Devs/kickstarts". This article provides more specific information about ROMs in relation to the WHDLoad package:

• WHDLoad Support in Amiga Forever

The following article explains where other files, including floppy disk image files, are located:

• Structure and Names of Emulation and System Files

The following article explains how to programmatically find the "Amiga Files" directory on Windows, independently of an Amiga Forever installation:

• Use of "Amiga Files" in Amiga Forever for Windows

The following article explains how to programmatically find the Amiga Forever installation directories on Windows:

• Locating the Installation under Windows

And on Android:

• Shared System Files on Android Devices

This article contains additional information about the ROM and operating system versions included in Amiga Forever:

• ROM and Operating System Files in Amiga Forever