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Editing aircraft.cfg and Windows 7

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dswo

Charter Member 2011
I upgraded from Windows XP to Windows 7 a few weeks ago and mostly it's been very good. (I was also moving from 32-bit to 64-bit.) Something I noticed recently, though, is that my edits to aircraft.cfg don't "take." Maybe Vista users had the same problem and I just never paid any attention.

Someone else noticed this, and it was suggested to disable UAC while you're editing: http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=267796. I'm sure that works, but it feels like a kludge. The other thing that works is to delete (not just overwrite) the existing aircraft.cfg and copy in the edited file from somewhere else. Messy!


  1. Is there a way to set the properties for my SimObjects folder so that aircraft.cfg is not protected?
  2. Why is aircraft.cfg protected in the first place?
 
1.its the folder. Simply right click fsx folder, or folder of choice (i choose to do fsx folder and apply to all folders within) and go to the permissions page. Then select your user and make sure allow is ticked for all. Then click apply

2.Security feature of UAC, stops nasties jumping onboard and changing system specific .ini and .cfg files etc, etc etc.
:ernae:
 
Lewis-A2A said:
1.its the folder. Simply right click fsx folder, or folder of choice (i choose to do fsx folder and apply to all folders within) and go to the permissions page. Then select your user and make sure allow is ticked for all. Then click apply
Click to expand...

Thanks, Lewis. That makes sense -- but it's not actually working. I added myself as a "Full control" user in the security settings, but my aircraft.cfg edits are still not taking effect, and the "Last modified" date is not changing.

I'm tempted, under "Advanced Security Settings," to check the "Replace all child object permissions from inheritable permissions from this object." However, I don't want to mess something up that's working pretty well for me now. Specifically, I don't want my user permissions (the ones for my particular user) to affect other permissions settings that might be needed for the sim and my many addons to work. I ordered a Win 7 reference manual a couple weeks ago, but it hasn't arrived yet, so I'm in murky waters here.
 
Theres two sets for each user, make sure you select the correct user under the permissions tab.

I'm currently at the day job on my XP editing machine so cannot help with screenshot right now.
 
Here are the same steps in a step by step format.

1. Navigate to your SimObjects folder -> Right click folder -> Properties -> Security tab -> Edit -> Add... -> type your Windows username -> OK -> select Allow checkbox for Full control -> OK or Apply.

2. By default, all folders and files in the Program Files and Program Files (x86) directories are protected and cannot be edited without triggering a UAC prompt for security reasons in Vista and 7.
 
Another way to work around the "kinda-sorta" User Access Control that Vista and 7 have is to reinstall FSX into a folder besides the default "Program Files" folder(s).
For example, I have my sims installed in a separate folder labeled "flightsims" instead of in the default Windows Program Files location.

I do this alternate installation location with any program that I need to edit frequently. Saves a lot of time and extra mouse clicks when making those edits.


(BTW...not to stir up any trouble, just random commentary on User Access Control)
The reason I call it "kinda-sorta UAC"...
This was done to improve security by keeping remote access from virii/trojans/hackers/etc away from the programs and also to keep the average computer user folks from doing something to cludge up their programs by poking around "under the hood".
It does help with the security (just as it does in a Unix OS), but not much protection against fumble-fingered users fiddling around (because most of the time you can just click past the UAC to get access for that fiddling instead of having to chmod, SU, or SUDO with password to get full admin privileges for edits like in Unix/Linux).
 
Thank you for the suggestions. I checked my permissions for aircraft.cfg -- the file not just the folder family -- and it was full for me. So why weren't my edits working? I had been editing with a Notepad replacement called Metapad. So, I tried editing with Notepad itself -- worked fine right away.

Anyone know why Notepad would work but not other editors? (Metapad is what I have been using to edit aircraft.cfg since FS9 days; worked fine with FSX too until W7.)

UPDATE: Notepad++ works. I wonder what's wrong with Metapad?
 
dswo said:
Thank you for the suggestions. I checked my permissions for aircraft.cfg -- the file not just the folder family -- and it was full for me. So why weren't my edits working? I had been editing with a Notepad replacement called Metapad. So, I tried editing with Notepad itself -- worked fine right away.

Anyone know why Notepad would work but not other editors? (Metapad is what I have been using to edit aircraft.cfg since FS9 days; worked fine with FSX too until W7.)

UPDATE: Notepad++ works. I wonder what's wrong with Metapad?
Click to expand...

It's probably a "remote program access" protection feature....or it could be a hiccup in Metapad's coding too.
I've seen that before, where some programs will work fine to do a certain job but others just can't get the required access to save any changes.

I use Notepad++ too. Great little editor!
I haven't ever tried Metapad though so I'm not sure if there would be any settings you could change to get it working.
Will Metapad work if you set it to "run as admin"?
 
Dang:

This is the one feature of Vista that made me ready to toss the laptop through the nearest window. It's my computer, only I use it and dang... the most anoying feature imaginable..... It's why I stuck with XP on my "mainframe".

T
 
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