FS9 Gremlins with W7 SP1

S

SSI01

Charter Member
Greetings all and I hope everyone had a gastronomically satisfying Thanksgiving.

The shop has completed the great switchover of OSs from WXP to W7 SP1. All the files in all FS9 plus its iterations were all switched over and appear to be on the machine in the same order they were in before. However clicking the .exe file in the FS9 folders produces no action whatsoever. Is there an additional step I have to complete before the sims begin running again as they should?

BTW also - my copy of W7 comes with DX11 as standard equipment - is this too advanced for FS9 and FSX?
 
NO

FS9 and FSX work fine with W7 and DX11 which is reverse DX9 compatible.

You are probably missing the registry entries from the old system.

You also need the appdata fs9 folder copied to w7 install
 
Having DX11 in W7 is great, especially if your graphics card is DX11. Your software & graphics hardware MUST BOTH be DX11 should you ever wish to upgrade to Prepar3D!

Have a look at http://www.flight1.com/view.asp?page=library for the registry tool to set your registry to recognise FS9.
Also, delete the existing FS9.cfg. Download 'everything' from www.voidtools.com. This is a desktop search engine that is super quick.
Use that to search for fs9.cfg, AFTER you have ticked 'show hidden files' in Explorer.

Run the sim again, this will rebuild the fs9.cfg.
All should then be good. :)

Regards,
Robin
 
Unless you have "the file that shall not be mentioned here - at all," you'll also need disk 4 in the drive. But since you said that nothing happens at all, I'm guessing that's not the issue. Trying to run the factory exe will produce an error if the disk is not in place.
 
Thanks everyone for the replies. Relax Tom, I've got disk 4 in the machine!

The young fellow who worked on the machine told me I'd have to reinstall every sim on the machine to get it to work properly. Before I went that route I decided to check here first.

I'll get started on the suggestions and report progress for anyone who may have similar issues.
 
If you're going to do a fresh install on a W7 box, the last thing you want to do is accept the default location. The Program Files and Program Files (x86) folders have elevated security settings that play havoc with processes like rewriting scenery config files and other stuff that lets FS save changes you make. Mine is in a folder in the C root call Added Programs, (C:\Added Programs\Flight Simulator 9) where I keep several things like my Avery label designer and Gimp.
 
Re Tom's suggestion about NOT installing into default directories...
Methinks that is a bit of an urban legend!!
I have always installed into the default directories.. FS9 (2 versions), FSX, as well as P3D..
I dropped my UAC settings right down (I really did not need it in Windows XP, & certainly not in W7 nor W8.1
I'm not paranoid at all & never had a problem on about 4 years.
I also believe that it makes life a lot easier as some installers look for default installations.
Actually, has anyone had a problem by installing into default directories?
 
@ zswobbie1

Its not the installing its the writing of files later. Turning off UAC or reducing its security level is a bad recommendation as it neuters the built in Windows security.

It also fails to work as intended for some programs as UAC does not automatically give you permissions but rather stops asking you for them. That is a problem for some add on programs like Duenna which will fail to write validation files at the end of a flight because it does not have permission to write to the folder.

Its better to learn how to use the tools you have than to render them useless. Once you have to reload your system from scratch you will learn how dangerous it can be to reduce the security level. I got hit by a damaging virus by going to the Cliffs of Dover site a few years ago by a virus buried in an add. The reason the virus was able to make so many changes to my system was I was running as a privileged user or a user who could say "yes" to the UAC popup. That is all they needed to get in and pretty much change everything in the registry.

I luckily was able to restore to an older image and had backups of my flightsim installs. Still it took me days to fix my system.

I then set myself up as a normal user and I use an other account as my admin account to make any admin changes. This keeps me a little more secure in that when logged on I cannot say "yes" to the UAC popup.

@SSI01

I have done the no install install of FS9 before and I know it works.

The problem you will have is if you did not save the contents of the "Application Data\Microsoft\FS9" folder from your xp machine and the registry entries then you will have to install from the discs.

You will not need to delete anything just rename your current FS9 folder. Just add another character at the end. Then do the normal install. Once installed you will need to install the 9.1 update. Once you have that installed you can copy off all the files as a default clean install to an external drive and delete it from your hard drive. Now rename the old install back to the default name. You should have all the registry keys and appdata folders in their proper place.

Example:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9
Changed to
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9-x

Now install and update to 9.1 to
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9

Copy off as a default install to external drive \Flight Simulator 9

Then delete

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9

Rename

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9-x

to

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9

If you also take the time to copy off the AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FS9 folder and your registry keys you will not have to install again from discs.

Note as airtj mentioned it does not matter where you install FS9 or FSX as long as you give your log on full control over the folder. This must be done no matter where you put it or some things like the registered version of FSUIPC will not be able to write to the directory they are in.

With that said I still have all my stuff installed to

C:\Flightsim
 
So far I've got my 1960s iteration of FS9 (FSSW60) up and running. I believe I actually got a slight bump in frame rate due to the changeover and can definitely run at a much higher resolution (I don't have it open right now but believe it was 1280X1086X32). This shows up at full screen, with WXP it was windowed and could not run for long. Now no stuttering in the screen display in external view when executing fairly sharp turns, either, so it's handling the scenery resolution OK at that setting.

What I did was to go to the drive for the sims (on my machine it's "E" drive), find the base folder for the sim, right click, select "properties," and get down through the "security" tab and type in a new user name for me in the appropriate box - in this case it's "owner." Added that to the authorized users, then checked the uppermost box in the bottom window (I think it's basically "permissions for everything.") It took a while for the permissions to be added to every single folder in each sim. After that it was just like before - make a shortcut, put it on the desktop, click on it and watch the fun begin.

I've still got what appears to be a slight vertical "squash" to the display, very slight only.

I've also noted the edges of the 172's wings have a slight serrated look to them. That is a result of the settings on my ATI video card. I can not find the ATI CCC (configuration center) on my machine. Obviously the card is working or I wouldn't have a picture at all. Did the changeover somehow shut down the CCC and therefore not allow changes to the resolution, edge-detect and so on? How do you go about finding that CCC and restoring previous settings?
 
Well, the new wrinkle is that none of the other iterations of FS will start due to the process aborting on account of the "scenery.dat" file being duplicated. I've gone through the process of adding the new "owner" name as previously described, changing it from a "read-only" file, and providing full permissions for the sim yet I'm being told startup is aborting.

It's beginning to look like the simpler yet longer solution is just to do a fresh install of FS9 for each iteration, transfer files in the existing installation into the new installation, delete the old installation and rename the new one in order for this to work.
 
DangerousDave - thanks for your instructions. I've left the original versions of FS9 on their original drive but renamed all the different installations by adding a character to the folder name, as you suggest. I did a fresh, from-the-box install of FS9 as instructed, plus installed the 9.1 update. This went into the same drive as the other installations. As a test I ran a quick flight on the fresh install and it worked as advertised.


Is the next step to transfer the fresh install to an external drive, add all the folders from one of the other versions of FS9, rename it, then bring it back to the original drive I intend to run it from? Or, can I leave the new install of FS9 on the drive where it is now, transfer the pertinent files from the other version of FS9 to the fresh install, then rename the installation? I'm sorry, I'm still a little lost here.
 
If you want to save the default install for a backup then the time to do it is now. Just copy it off to an external drive if you have one. This just saves a copy to recover any needed files easily.

Now if you want to you can delete the fresh install you just created.

Finally and remove the extra character from the other install of "Flight Simulator 9". That old install of FS9 should now run just fine. Note some payware may not work unless it is reinstalled.
 
Thanks so much Dave, I've had long-running RW issues here that cause the same sort of responses from me. I will get together what I need to ask you into some sort of coherent format.
 
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