I was checking out 'XPOI Geographical VFR/IFR tool' for FSX and they mention an online database. What happens if they go out of business, does the product stop working?

The online database XPOI uses is not maintained by us. It uses the community created database at www.geonames.org, which is an Open project, not related to Flight sim applications only, but it already powers a lot of projects. XPOI also uses Wikipedia, which is also very well known.Which is the main reasons why the XPOI data is way better than anything else might have have done by managing our own databases: there's no way we or anybody else in the Flightsim business could maintain such amount of data ( more than 8 million POIs from Geonames alone, plus hundreds of thousands of Wikipedia entries ). Instead, by using a community-based and open data source, it gets better and better over time, since everyone can add his own fixes and improvements, not just the small flightsim community. The beauty of it, is that any modification that anyone made, it's immedately available to XPOI inside Flight sim, without having to import or convert anything, since the data taken entirely "Live" from the Net.Have a look at the very favorable Avsim review here:http://www.avsim.com/pages/0109/FSDreamteam/XPOI.htm

I just wish someone would produce a damn good scenery pack for Manchester (EGCC).AdamHelloWhat is wrong with this one?http://www.uk2000scenery.com/newsite/

Thanks for the link; I didn't know these existed!I'm educated.Adam

What happens if they go out of business, does the product stop working?

My understanding is that all of the FSDreamTeam products require online activation. If the activation server goes away for any reason, the next time you need to activate (after a hardware upgrade, for example) you will be out of luck.This is a potential problem with any software that requires online activation - not just with FSDreamTeam products.

I hope that FSDreamteam stays in business. They have produced some of the best airports for FSX.I have learned to create a backup image using win 7 in order to avoid having to re-install everything.I had to restore several times while tweaking using my gtx 285 and BP=0. I can't say for sure, but even after I restored, I opened fsx and it asked me if I wanted to activate my fsdreamteam airports. That's interesting because I created an image and backed up FSX. Maybe I need to check my settings.PS:Has anyone figured out why there's no AI in Honolulu? I have airplanes at every other airports except Honolulu.

The online database XPOI uses is not maintained by us. It uses the community created database at www.geonames.org, which is an Open project, not related to Flight sim applications only, but it already powers a lot of projects. XPOI also uses Wikipedia, which is also very well known.Which is the main reasons why the XPOI data is way better than anything else might have have done by managing our own databases: there's no way we or anybody else in the Flightsim business could maintain such amount of data ( more than 8 million POIs from Geonames alone, plus hundreds of thousands of Wikipedia entries ). Instead, by using a community-based and open data source, it gets better and better over time, since everyone can add his own fixes and improvements, not just the small flightsim community. The beauty of it, is that any modification that anyone made, it's immedately available to XPOI inside Flight sim, without having to import or convert anything, since the data taken entirely "Live" from the Net.Have a look at the very favorable Avsim review here:http://www.avsim.com/pages/0109/FSDreamteam/XPOI.htm

Excellent!

My understanding is that all of the FSDreamTeam products require online activation. If the activation server goes away for any reason, the next time you need to activate (after a hardware upgrade, for example) you will be out of luck.

The original question wasn't related in any way to the activation. It was about XPOI, which is a product that uses an online database to get the data it needs to display point of interests and Wikipedia informations while flying. Which is not a problem if we go "out of business", since its database is not maintaned by us.However, I'll thank you anyway for your question about the activation, because it gives me a chance to clear some points about our online activation:Even for activation, we choose not to improvise and, instead of trying to setup our own servers, we use Esellerate. Esellerate is the leading ecommerce service provider, and its part of the larger Digital River corporation, which is the undisputed N.1 in digital delivery. There are multiple activations servers with plenty of redundancy, which means they never go off-line.So, even in case WE would go "out of business", which is something we are not planning to do, considering we are probably the oldest 3rd party Flight sim developer around (we do commercial Flight sim developement since 1993 so, it has been 17 years now...), our presence is not really needed for activation, because product WILL continue to reactivate automatically, as long as Digital River is in business.We give 6 activations for each order. Which means one can change hardware up to 5 times after the initial purchase, and the product will self-reactivate automatically, without any need to contact anyone. It's only when one exceeds those 6 activations, there might be a need to contact us. BUT, even this is not so common because, there's an automatic self-reclaim of activations every 90 days. Which means, even if one has exahusted all his 6 activations, when a new one will be requested because of an hardware change, if more than 90 days have passed since the last activation was granted, a 7th activation will be automatically given, without having to contact support.The only time one needs to contact support, is when all the activations are used AND the last one was granted LESS than 90 days earlier. In this case, and this case only, we need to act manually to grant additional activation to that customer. To be more clear: if one changes hardware exactly every 91 days, activations will be automatically granted by the server FOREVER, without any limitation on their total number.So, with this system, there's only one possibile situation, when reactivation is no longer possible:1) One has used all his 6 activations2) Another hardware change is detected3) Less than 90 days have passed since the last time an activation was granted4) We have gone out of business5) Esellerate/Digital River has gone out of business tooWhich is almost impossibile because, should Digital River go out of business, and we didn't, we'll obvisouly switch to another ecommerce provider.And if WE would go out of business, I guess the most likely event would be that we'll just sell our products rights to somebody else, that will obviously take care of support.Which is basically what happened with Cloud9: they decided to retire from flight sim business, so we took over their product line and support/reactivation. Which only improved (a lot) the existing situation for Cloud9 customers, since they were all upgraded to our more liberal activation policies.

I think that sums it up for me.

I just wish someone would produce a damn good scenery pack for Manchester (EGCC).

Thanks for the link; I didn't know these existed!

UK2000 make some of the best most frame rate friendly airports around.they have free trials of all of their Xtreme airports as well as free versions which do not expire.http://www.uk2000scenery.com/newsite/http://www.uk2000scenery.com/free/My_Homep...iles/Page1.html

UK2000 make some of the best most frame rate friendly airports around.they have free trials of all of their Xtreme airports as well as free versions which do not expire.http://www.uk2000scenery.com/newsite/http://www.uk2000scenery.com/free/My_Homep...iles/Page1.html

I'll be investigating these further this evening; I will give the free ones a go before buying the Manchester full version. Ta for the links.Adam

i couldn't wait and i ordered KORD KJFK KFLL and LSGG57.10 euros ... after conversion to canadian and my cc charges 2.5% for conversion, it's still less than $20 CDN per airport :(my only regret is getting KLAS before this sale

The original question wasn't related in any way to the activation.

Well, the question was about what happened to the product if you go out of business. Activation is part of that. It sounds like you have that situation pretty well covered, though, so that's good. :(

Thanks for the heads up on this. I picked up JFK, LAS, FLL, and ORD for right around $80. I think get Greystone with ORD, as well? I am very impressed with the visuals of FSDT sceneries. Just got back into FSX and am looking forward to adding some AI to these. I like the fact that you can also use your licenses for FS9 as well. I wish more scenery developers would do that. I've been back and forth between the two so much!Scott

I think get Greystone with ORD, as well?

You can just download Greystone from our forum, here:http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=578.0And it will be active, if your KORD scenery is active too.

with all these great airports, now all we need is a few more sceneries like KPHX, KDEN, KSLC, KDAL, KLAX, KSFO, KOAK, KSEA, KPDX, and by that time, PMDG will have released their glorious 737NG... I will be in siming heaven!!

Appreciate the heads up on this. I just picked up my first two airport add-ons ever, KFLL and KLAS. Unfortunately, I'm on vacation, just landed at FLL the other night. Hope these airports are as nice as everyone says. KLAS was a definite where I know I should be getting good performance. I'm most familiar with FLL, too familiar :( , but my FSX performance at FLL is not great usually. Hopefully it will not be a big performance hit. For ~$20, I figure I couldn't pass it up. Thanks again! Can't wait to check them out next week.