I have a beef...

[Guest rdg]

I knew he would be back. The only thing X-Plane will do for you is put you back in FSX (or FS9)You dont have a dog named Toto do you?Bob G

[rightseater 0]

At the end of the day....X-Plane? Seriously? You are indeed desperate. Feel free to PM me and I'll be happy to give ya a call, and let's troubleshoot (or I'll have one of my guys troubleshoot) your issue(s) and get you up and running again.

That's quite an offer Geoff, I'd take him up on that. I wish you would figure out my Vista 64 problems. I've had such a hard time since getting my new computer with Vista 64 that I've actually just gone back to FS9 until I can get it all hammered out. For the first time in over a year I'm actually logging more hours in my real Baron than in FSX.

[Geofa 108]

Mike T-My problems with Vista 32 start immediately and on a new machine with a fresh install (my old one had no problems). Vista simply refuses to update-and that is with a new install. It is well documented that others have this problem and MS has no idea what to do about it. I have also had the well documented problem of when Vista tries to update one is left with a black screen and a cursor on it-requiring another reformat, reinstall. I have spent 4 total months (at 4 different times) out of 18 working with MS techs on it-only to lose everything 4 times-I can't justify the time or loss of data/software anymore. I looked at my emails last night-each of the 4 tech sessions entailed about 20 emails of multi page instructions of what to try. The last email always stated-at this point a reformat and reinstall is about all we can suggest...I'd like to put Windows 7 on it-but you guessed it-it won't install because it says it needs Vista 32 to update first.As far as Vista 64-can't do it as my Elite radio stack hardware will not work with it, and that is important to me.I am simply at the point that everything else works on my computer (except Vista updating). I have no troubles with any other program except Fsx activation which rears its ugly head at random times. This problem last appeared exactly a year ago and hasn't come up till last night. Therefore I am content to wait for another new system /operating system instead of spending more months of my life trying to get Vista to work. I simply can not afford the loss/ time factor anymore. However, at this point-if fsx decides to not allow me to use it anymore I will probably just write it off. I am very glad that I stumbled into a fairly easy solution that did not require me losing everything and another month of trying to get it back.Pastorpilot-part of the reason I can't be bothered anymore with this mahem is I have been flying a lot, and between work life and that I just don't have the time or patience to mess with something that seems to self destruct on a random basis. I do flight sim for fun-and when it becomes not fun I just will not do it. The same applies to real flight! I stumbled on to a fix this time, but the next time fsx activation destructs for good I will probably just leave it.As to xplane-I don't like to get into loyalty camps but use the sim that best serves my needs. Xplane does much that fs/fsx does not do, and fsx does much that xplane does not do. For flying piston twins, specifically the one Jeremy and I do, xplane is in the much more than fsx does imho. Since I use the sim to train, it is taking more of my attention now. Fsx remains for fun, which I also like to do on occasion.Jeremy-bummer about your brand new system having troubles with Vista 64. I have Vista on another machine and have had no problems, but it seems when you have a machine it does not like you can have nothing but trouble.

[Bob Familton 14]

Hi Geofa. I agree with you 100%. Whoever at MS, ACES, or whatever, that created this monster of activation, should be hung by their ba*** until dead in my humble estimation! Regards, Bob.

[Guest Nick_N]

With a kind request for patience with a computer illiterate ... and with great gratitude for your tuning guides which continue to transform my experience ... Could you please tell me if it is possible to upgrade from XP Pro 32 to 64? ... Or does it mean the dreaded start from scratch rebuild?? I got the idea that your product link was NOT an upgrade.Thanks. Steve

No sir.. its start from scratchBut I do wish to also reinforce what Mike posted and add to it.. Do not install FSX/FS9 or any performance application to the Vista Program Files folder.. instead place these applications on another drive and verify/set the folder permissions manually to ADMIN/FULL To do so removes Vista's hold because anything launched from the Program Files folder is still under Vista scrutiny regardless of UAC status. and shutting down DEP is an issue of compatibility with something installed and seeing a crash than any perf gain. Shutting down DEP is NOT going to make things run better.. its a complete mythI have all the OS's installed and so far the only one that comes close to XP x64 is Windows7 (and I do not use DX10) but it still does not exceed the perf of XP x64 every circumstance or flight situation. They are very close to each other though but it does require setting it up correctly on initial installation as Mike pointed out.Same is true for XP but not for the 'nanny' issue and true for Vista as well.. having your performance application on a drive outside of the Windows partition and drive does go a long way in helping the system access that data with less resources consumed and it keeps the application tidy from fragmentation unless a large addon is installed. On the Windows drive its always going to be susceptible to that expanding and contracting partition.One for the things I have stressed for years is all this 'shut down this and that' on systems which have 2GB or more of system memory is one of the worse things one can do to a system.. there are good tweaks and there are very, very bad.. but guess what.. on SOME systems the BAD tweak may actually be GOOD and the opposite for another system!The problem with computers is... If you DONT KNOW what it is you are shutting down in services and you DONT KNOW how that may affect, in example, how a driver or application may access the system... then all you are doing is making your life miserable when things do go wrong. There is no "one size fits all shut down' sequence that works other than VERY BASIC services which will not interfere but will release the most resources with no further impact. At the same time the ONLY way to remove the total footprint of services and startup applications is they must be shut down and a CLEAN BOOT occur. If that boot does not occur with the desired (both services and startup programs) items in a truly disbaled state at boot.. there IS LITTLE really being done!People end up in more trouble visiting places like Black Viper than probably any other reason. Tweaks are great but only if the users KNOWS how that tweak will follow the system down the line.

[OldMaintChief 7]

I have been following your problems and believe you have a hardware issue.I had a similar problem installing FSX, GEX, and updates, on separate HD. NickN suggested I check my memory. I tested it with memtest86 and found errors. Replaced the memory and the programs loaded fine. Recently FSX would crash to black screen after 10 min. while testing new NV drivers. Memtest86 showed 17 errors and locked in a loop. Replaced the 4 month old memory ($65 at Newegg) and re-installed the 169.25 driver.Installed in C:\Games, NOT Program Files.UAC left on is not a problem. UAC takes the gun away from the guy who is trying to shoot himself in the foot. Win7 will do away with the flags, I hope.FSX runs better on Vista than XP on my machine. SP1, NickN setup and the new silver bullet, FRS LIMITER, made all the difference! My only real problems have been bad Corsair memory and crappy NV drivers. Years ago I switched to ATI video cards after flashing textures and black squares around lights on my GeForce 256. Everything was fine until I got my new machine. Now that I am back to NV I have spikes, flashing textures, and black squares around the lights (momentary).Have funDaveSystem:Dell XPS 720 H2CIntel Quad Core Extreme QX6800 2.93 @ 3.73GHz4GB (2x2GB) Corsair Dominator EPP 8500C5D FSB 800MHz @ 1066MHz2x160GB WD SATA Raptors, Sound Blaster X-FiNvidia 2x8800GTX 768MB SLI, Dell 2407WFP PanelXP driver: 169.21, Vista driver: 169.25Logitech Z680 5.1 Speakers, G5 Mouse, Saitek X52WinXP Media Edition SP3 on C: (SATA 0) w/ Internet/AV/Office/FS9/Falcon4 AFVista SP1 on D: (SATA 1) (Dual Boot) w/FSX3DMark06: 17,018/6992/7123/5667

[Cruachan 705]

I may do that-however I have really lost the urge to reformat, lose many things, and spend a month getting some of it back.By the way-fsx is the only program that does this to me. I can live with Vista not wanting to update itself. It would be nice if MS refunded the $200 or so I paid for Vista-my computer ran fine with xp.

Hi Geof,I'm still on XP Home and have always been stubborn to the point of screaming my undoubtedly irrational aversion to Vista. Better the devil you know, I say, and when all's said and done XP can still be regarded as being a worthy operating system that is pretty stable and reliable...most of the time. Having said that, I too have experienced my share of irksome problems and there have been those periods when no solution has been forthcoming and I've felt like jacking it all in in favour of a more forgiving hobby. Usually a cooling off period is all that is required to get me back on course. Time to reflect and consider all the possibilities. Also it certainly doesn't hurt to make regular backup images of your hard drive/s - saved my bacon on more than one occasion and I have never yet had to reinstall XP, FS9 or FSX.This may not be of any help and I'm not sure whether Vista has an Event Viewer equivalent, but I had some problems recently with repeated requests to activate Active Sky Advanced:http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=247961It might be worth checking the Event Viewer (if Vista has one) to see if anything unusual is happening that might go some way towards explaining your current travails.Rest assured, you are amongst friends who understand your pain.Regards,Mike

[Geofa 108]

I just tested my memory and it came out fine..I did that for the ms techs too.I would suspect hardware except for the fact I never have blue screens of death, ctd's or crashes.In fact everything runs just fine-even fsx-except vista refuses to update itself and every once in a while fsx gives an activation error and then trashes itself.All other programs fine-no problems.I'll look into the event logger but I did spend months checking everything with the techs.I really think there is something in Vista the programmers did not plan on and they even don't know how to fix it-and the activation scheme is responsible.

[OldMaintChief 7]

I just tested my memory and it came out fine..I did that for the ms techs too.Did you use Memtest86?I would suspect hardware except for the fact I never have blue screens of death, ctd's or crashes.In fact everything runs just fine-even fsx-except vista refuses to update itself and every once in a while fsx gives an activation error and then trashes itself.I did NOT have any blue screens, ctd's, or crashes either. Everything ran just fine but Visa refused to update.All other programs fine-no problems.I'll look into the event logger but I did spend months checking everything with the techs.I really think there is something in Vista the programmers did not plan on and they even don't know how to fix it-and the activation scheme is responsible.

I think Vista runs better on new hardware. I have XP32 and Vista32 (dual boot) loaded on my old gamer, a 3.2 P4 2GB X1950. FS9 runs great and Vista runs slow, both OS's. I originally had XP32, RAID 0, FS9, and FSX on this new gamer but FSX had problems. I took NickN's advice and dumped RAID 0, put XP on drive 1, and Vista on drive 2, using his setup. Huge difference! Installed Accel and GEX. No problems with Vista on either machines, or my laptop. My recent memory failure caused black screen lockups. Replaced and all is back to normal. All sliders to the right, except traffic 59%, cars 20%, ships 40%(like the ferries around Friday). KSEA 23 fps, locked 30 most other places. GEX . Cloud fix, and FPS Limiter a must.Hope you get it sorted. If not, you can always go flying!Dave

[Geofa 108]

I think Vista runs better on new hardware. I have XP32 and Vista32 (dual boot) loaded on my old gamer, a 3.2 P4 2GB X1950. FS9 runs great and Vista runs slow, both OS's. I originally had XP32, RAID 0, FS9, and FSX on this new gamer but FSX had problems. I took NickN's advice and dumped RAID 0, put XP on drive 1, and Vista on drive 2, using his setup. Huge difference! Installed Accel and GEX. No problems with Vista on either machines, or my laptop. My recent memory failure caused black screen lockups. Replaced and all is back to normal. All sliders to the right, except traffic 59%, cars 20%, ships 40%(like the ferries around Friday). KSEA 23 fps, locked 30 most other places. GEX . Cloud fix, and FPS Limiter a must.Hope you get it sorted. If not, you can always go flying!Dave

Interesting thing is I put Vista 32 on my 4 year old machine two years ago-no problem-ever.Then I upgraded to my present Intel core 2 duo e6750 2.66 ghz with 4megs, gforce 8800gt-nothing but trouble-but again only with Vista not being able to update itself and random fsx activation errors-everything else works fine. I have Gex, Rex , asx , fex, utx, and every x known to mankind. They all run fine. I get great fps with fsx. The sim works great-everything is wonderful-till one day (it can be a week from now or a year from now or two nights ago) I get the fsx is not activated-I (ms) am going to trash it for you so you can never use it again.I've been flying so much lately (3.5 hours today and 23 hours in the last week) that I actually would really enjoy sitting at my computer and enjoy it for a change. :-) Thankfully like the Dutch boy holding his fingers in the leaking wall I am back to business-till the next ms/Vista induced crisis.So far so good-but I feel like there is a time bomb just waiting to go off-hopefully I can keep the leaking hole plugged for the next operating system that will actually improve my life?!

[rightseater 0]

Now you can go back to FSX for awhile and try setting those props by sound....good luck!

[Geofa 108]

Now you can go back to FSX for awhile and try setting those props by sound....good luck!

Yeah-that isn't going to work... :(

[OldMaintChief 7]

If your VOR's have flags jumping in and out on all stations and other aircraft around you are not having this problem, then I think the problem is your aircraft and not the stations. I don't know anyone having the problem you have.Do you have FSX on it's own drive? I have Vista and FSX on one drive, no AV, no other software.When you re-installed, did you have this problem with FSX+Accel only? Maybe add-on is causing a problem.I know what you mean. Sometimes it is nice to shot a ILS from a chair with a brandy and cigar, and no pressure.Have funDave

[Geofa 108]

If your VOR's have flags jumping in and out on all stations and other aircraft around you are not having this problem, then I think the problem is your aircraft and not the stations. I don't know anyone having the problem you have.Do you have FSX on it's own drive? I have Vista and FSX on one drive, no AV, no other software.When you re-installed, did you have this problem with FSX+Accel only? Maybe add-on is causing a problem.I know what you mean. Sometimes it is nice to shot a ILS from a chair with a brandy and cigar, and no pressure.Have funDave

Just do a google search-many having my problem...

Just do a google search-many having my problem...Problem is with Vista-fsx is just going along with it.

[OldMaintChief 7]

Okay. :( GoodnightDave