How to: network installation

[GrenoZee 0]

Greetings,After an extensive search on this I came empty-handed so I would like to ask here.Does anyone have an experience with installing FS2004 on a network drive or running it from a shared folder?The idea, of course, is to run an identical environment on multiple PCs.Does anyone have any experience with this?P.S.: I'm aware of the fact that each PC running FS2004 from this shared installation needs a separate license

[Egbert Drenth 250]

Hi,I don't run FS from a network(share) myself but I'm sure it's not going to work in the way you want.- Yes, you can install it on a shared folder, provided you have mapped that folder to a drive letter.- No, FS and FS-addons write entries in the Windows registry and/or to various Windows OS folders (MyDocuments, Win/system, etc) and this is done only on the PC on which you installed FS and add-ons.In theory you could install FS on a virtual PC using VMWare or Microsoft Virtual PC and copy the virtual machine after installation to another PC.However I doubt if the performance is reasonable.

[GrenoZee 0]

Sure, the installation would have to be done on all the clients with the target folder being on a shared driveand getting overwritten with each install. This is one time issue though and is possible to handle.What worries me more is that FS9.exe locks some files in the install directory, for instance scenery.cfg, which causes subsequent clients to get this lock and fail to execute. This seems to be the biggest obstacle so far...What would seem interesting here as well is the possibility to move only some files to the file server - scceneries, aircrafts, gauges... As far as I know only sceneries can be moved like that, the rest is a fixed FS folder structure.

[Egbert Drenth 250]

"Sure, the installation would have to be done on all the clients with the target folder being on a shared driveand getting overwritten with each install."what is the advantage (apart from using less disk space) of having FS installed to a shared folder if you have to run all installers (Fs, sceneries, aircraft add-ons,...) anyway on each and every PC?It doesn't make sense to me. Time wise it will make not any difference, you only spare some GB of disk space.

[GrenoZee 0]

Exactly this one. I can't squeeze FS9 onto my laptop any more and I've just got an old server with 40 GB desk space for free. Also, I'm considering buying WidevieW so that means more installations necessary. I figured file server install might work here for me...