A lot of the value of reviews comes from what one knows of the reviewer, which is one of the advantages of having reviewers post in the forums and writing several reviews. If someone reads, for example, a review written by me and they see my posts in the forum and thinks 'that Al guy's a moron, he knows bugger all about flying or computers', then they'll know that my opinion and findings in a review probably won't tally with their own. They might even chose to completely avoid reviews by me for that reason LOL, but if they do, then in an odd way that's another valuable aspect of reviews and to be honest, probably just as useful an effect of reviews as for someone who might think I'm bloody marvelous and take everything I write as gospel.You can pretty much tell from reading maybe ten posts by someone on a forum whether you are likely to share opinions with them or not, so I would urge people to get to know the reviewer by their posts, so they can gauge whether they'd sit there slapping each other's backs and agreeing with one another if they ever met for a drink in a pub, or whether they'd be ready to slap one another for being stupid.An example of that for me, would be some of the reviews in PC Pilot, which is a magazine that sometimes gets accused of being a bit too 'rose tinted' in its outlook. I happen to know Jane Rachel Whittaker, the mag's deputy editor quite well. Although like most of the writers for PC Pilot, she has to write what fits in with the magazine's breezy and upbeat style, which is a bit too lightweight for my tastes on occasion, underpinning anything she writes is the fact that I know she flew 737s for real, has a lot of piloting experience and knowledge, and is someone I get along with, so even when tied to that editorial style, I end up trusting what she writes.Personally, I think the reader's reviews section of Avsim is underused as well. I always read the reviews people post in there as I appreciate the time and trouble people go to in order to write them, and it is invariably with something worth saying that such things are done. So remember too that you can write your own reviews and nothing prevents you from being as honest as you like if you've had problems, and you know that even if not everyone agrees with you, someone, somewhere will find it of use, but remember to post your computer specs if you do so.Al

the only times I bought a product I didn't quite like in the end, was a product I jumped upon just after it was released.Bout out of breath. "Don't fly the " A" model of anything."I read reviews, but put very little credence in them. Just as in music or movies. It is the eye of the beholder. I just read the latest review on the Orbx's Lancair. First venture and it's absolutly perfect? Ummm. Astonishing! The rest of the developement community could use them as an example! Reckon I'm looking more for faults than goods. Perhaps just a pessimist.

This post is a perfect example of why so many threads go so bad so quickly. It happens that yesterday I read that mini-review and decided to try out the Lancair. I had been reading some of the post around the net and it seemed like a fun little craft to just do some yanking and banking. Here is what I have found.I don't like the cockpit view. Instruments hard to read. I can't seem to get the flaps to work. So right away....this thing is not perfect! I went back today and looked at the review again. Now where does it say that this is a perfect release. It says that for a first release Orbx did a good job.So now I am supposed to blame the reviewer because I spent $35.00 and I have already found 3 things I don't like. I guess now I can post all over the net that Orbx is bad and the reviewer is bad but here is the rest of the story and the reason people like Jim Rhodes scream and pull their hair out!! Please read on....My negative remarks above are based on about 20 minutes of flying time and even though I tried very hard to install the aircraft and go fly with out reading the instructions or manual I could not help but see at least 2 warnings from the developer saying that this is not like other downloads and products, You must read the Manual This is just about the point where a lot of users jump on line and start asking very stupid questions. I know this is true because I have already seen I believe all 3 of my dislikes posted on line. There are in fact simple answers and solutions and If memory serves...according to those post, they are all addressed in the manual.My post here will verify that I am not a groupie for Dev's. But until we as users understand and acknowledge that they make many very valid points and do our part by at the very least "RTFM" then how can we expect them to treat us other than "stupid customers"

This post is a perfect example of why so many threads go so bad so quickly. It happens that yesterday I read that mini-review and decided to try out the Lancair. I had been reading some of the post around the net and it seemed like a fun little craft to just do some yanking and banking. Here is what I have found.I don't like the cockpit view. Instruments hard to read. I can't seem to get the flaps to work. So right away....this thing is not perfect! I went back today and looked at the review again. Now where does it say that this is a perfect release. It says that for a first release Orbx did a good job.So now I am supposed to blame the reviewer because I spent $35.00 and I have already found 3 things I don't like. I guess now I can post all over the net that Orbx is bad and the reviewer is bad but here is the rest of the story and the reason people like Jim Rhodes scream and pull their hair out!! Please read on....My negative remarks above are based on about 20 minutes of flying time and even though I tried very hard to install the aircraft and go fly with out reading the instructions or manual I could not help but see at least 2 warnings from the developer saying that this is not like other downloads and products, You must read the Manual This is just about the point where a lot of users jump on line and start asking very stupid questions. I know this is true because I have already seen I believe all 3 of my dislikes posted on line. There are in fact simple answers and solutions and If memory serves...according to those post, they are all addressed in the manual.My post here will verify that I am not a groupie for Dev's. But until we as users understand and acknowledge that they make many very valid points and do our part by at the very least "RTFM" then how can we expect them to treat us other than "stupid customers"

Wow, a user actually admitting publically that they did not RTM and ignored warnings to do so...This thread would have been fine if the title had read: 3rd party Providers and Reviewers and Users seriously lacking... Perhaps then we could all see that no one in the community can claim perfection. Merry Christmas

Wow, a user actually admitting publically that they did not RTM and ignored warnings to do so...This thread would have been fine if the title had read: 3rd party Providers and Reviewers and Users seriously lacking... Perhaps then we could all see that no one in the community can claim perfection. Merry Christmas

This post is a perfect example of a Dev coming up with a solution of a "user's" "problem". You sir are right in that adding the one word "users" in the title makes it a whole different discussion. Perhalps there is hope for us all on Christmas Day 2010. Please note the new warning I have added to my signature below. It says it all!Merry Christmas

This post is a perfect example of a Dev coming up with a solution of a "user's" "problem". You sir are right in that adding the one word "users" in the title makes it a whole different discussion. Perhalps there is hope for us all on Christmas Day 2010. Please note the new warning I have added to my signature below. It says it all!Merry Christmas

Ha ha, Merry Christmas to all to whom that applies including the OP of this thread.

A lot of the value of reviews comes from what one knows of the reviewer, which is one of the advantages of having reviewers post in the forums and writing several reviews. If someone reads, for example, a review written by me and they see my posts in the forum and thinks 'that Al guy's a moron, he knows bugger all about flying or computers', then they'll know that my opinion and findings in a review probably won't tally with their own. They might even chose to completely avoid reviews by me for that reason LOL, but if they do, then in an odd way that's another valuable aspect of reviews and to be honest, probably just as useful an effect of reviews as for someone who might think I'm bloody marvelous and take everything I write as gospel.You can pretty much tell from reading maybe ten posts by someone on a forum whether you are likely to share opinions with them or not, so I would urge people to get to know the reviewer by their posts, so they can gauge whether they'd sit there slapping each other's backs and agreeing with one another if they ever met for a drink in a pub, or whether they'd be ready to slap one another for being stupid.

I completely agree. I am very active at Trip Advisor and I post reviews from time to time. I also post in the forums and have more posts there than I do with all FS sites combined. Look me up; I have the same user name there. Anyway, when I look at some one's review for a resort that I am considering, one of the things I look at is their reviews of other properties that I have visited. If we seem to have the same opinions of that resort, I trust their review more. On a quick glance, it doesn't seem like there is an easy way to read the other reviews by the same person. Maybe it is there but I didn't see it. With Trip Advisor, you can easily see all of the reviews done by that user to asses whether you may have the same values. It would be a nice addition to AVSIM.Trip Advisor has the same problem that some have mentioned here. It is tough to get the big picture on a resort. Some have one bad experience and slam the resort. I recently read a review of a very nice Mexican property that I am visiting in March that gave it a bad review because their wifi was spotty. I have also read reviews where people rave about places that I would never visit. The first review was over critical and the other wasn't critical enough. To me, the over critical reviews and the glowing reviews are just as suspicious. The difference between TA and AVSIM is TA gets thousands of reviews and AVSIM only publishes one. Since the reviews will always be SUBJECTIVE, it is tough to decide where the truth actually lies. In the end, I usually base my buying decisions on what I find in the forums. I usually ignore the reviews.AVSIM could learn from Trip Advisor. When it comes to reviews, they are the big boy on the block. And I know, people will say that you have to be an expert to review an add on but I disagree. I want to know what the average user thinks. I can weed through the stupid and a really excited user reviews and come up with a true sence of a product. The only way to do it, however, is to have more than one review. I know there are user reviews in the forums but they are not listed by product so they are not easy to scan.

Hope you all had a nice holiday.A lot of interpretations being made beyond what I actually wrote -- suggest some of you re-read my actual comments and don't get caught up in other's interpretations.Some clarifications:1. Error trapping in YOUR own DLL's (developers), not in Microsoft's or someone else's DLL.2. I never mentioned anything about debugging an In-Process DLL from Microsoft, however, just for your own reference it can be done using Visual Studio but be aware you will NOT get any Debug symbols (obviously) so you'll need to understand assembler.Under VS 2008 (see attached pic), the way to accomplish this is to run FSX, then open up VS 2008 create a simple windows forms application -- doesn't matter if it's .NET framework based or not. Set a breakpoint on some of your code (any code), then from the Menu select Debug | Attach to Process -- now be sure to select "Managed Code, Native Code" as Attach To options (defaults to just Managed code), and also make sure you select checkbox "Show Processes from all users" and "Show process in all sessions". Attach to FSX - select and hit Attach button. Now proceed to run FSX to the point where you believe you can duplicate the problem (that crashes FSX), when FSX crashes you be prompted to debug and/or be able to see the assembler listing at the point of error. You will NOT have access to the call stack, but you should be able to step the assembler which will give you some clues as to what might have caused the problem.This is NOT a "easy" process, but I never said it was, you need to know much about VS and Assembler because as has been pointed out MS doesn't provide debug symbols with FSX (although, given FSX has ended it's life and MS have no future plans for FS, it might be nice if they released a debug symbol set - perhaps an unrealistic wish but it sure could OPEN up the door for the community).There are also other tools that you can use such as Process Explorer and Process Monitor -- you can get debugging symbols from here: http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols/ to aid with debugging process. FSX uses the VC runtime along with DX9c and DX10 runtimes.3. Not sure what searching the AVSIM library for a "Commercial" product I contributed to back in the mid to late 90's is going demonstrate? And I wouldn't understand how you could access credits information for a commercial product via an AVSIM library search? Like I said in my thread, I gave away my work to a commercial product. I have worked on projects using the SDK for my own use, but have never released to anyone (and don't plan too as they are unfinished).4. At no point have I ever asked or seeked perfection.My point was that 4 out of 5 products I recently purchased just didn't work out of the box (or downloaded) - again not just a problematic feature or two, but DOA type problems. Other's have posted similar issues and experiences, it's clear my experience is NOT unique. Some of things I listed are simple items to address:1. User friendly and solid Install process (yes this does require testing on different OS's) - if the product requires .NET x.x then be sure to test on a system that does NOT have it to see what your installer/product does (if anything) -- looks like most use InstallShield which I know from first hand can be daunting at times (heck in large companies they have a job position specific to just making Installers/UnInstallers)2. Uninstall process that performs proper removal of all the items installed including FSX.CFG entries and more3. Use product specific naming conventions on any DLL's you create -- preferably put them in their own directory rather root of FSX4. For those that write their own DLL and applications that interact with FSX, provide some error logging to help both dev and end user alike5. Check for any key mapping conflicts These are the issues I've been trying to communicate. And these are the issues I've been critical about. As for reviews and reviewers, I completely understand the work and effort it takes to really do a full review of a product -- it's just one person's experience. I'm not trying to negate the amount of work required to produce an FSX 3rd party AddOn -- I know its considerable. But if dev's want more than just a small community of people buying their products, then they really do need to improve the overall end user experience because that's what keeps people coming back rather than doing something else ... like CoD version 12 or Civ V etc. ;)What it boils down to, is less support post release. The less time dev's have to go thru support issues, the more time they have to develop the next project. It really is a win win for both.If I expressed this badly or mis-communicated, then I apologize.Rob.

What you described is the "poor man's" method of figuring out a crash. I've never had to resort to that as I can run the application inside the IDE and debug it just fine in the source code.However, end users don't have my source code nor do they have a debug version of my code. They're not about to either. Without either of those, there's nothing to go on. There is no effective method of trapping errors and providing the same level of information the OS event log will provide without risking your software being hacked within hours. No thanks.As I've already stated, you can't get error information of value in a module/gauge .dll in FS running on a client's system. Just can't be done.

Honestly Ed, even if you left the entire debug in there who cares... someone isn't going to reverse engineer something they can obviously hack together themselves. If you build a copy protection system, the person who breaks it obviously could have written the code himself because he knew exactly what you were doing. Removing the debug doesn't help one bit in that situation.

Going back the post that started it all, I do feel for you having all of the problems with the software that appeared for you.I've been extremely lucky with my FSX install on my desktop and laptop to be very error free. Have you had any luck resolving most of the issues that you have encountered? Are you receiving good support from the developers and community? I think a good dream would not just have official reviewer, but also more. I come to AVSIM for all of my reviews because they give the most extensive. While I have had some different opinions they have been good for getting a good idea what I might expect. I would love to have more people writing and showing pictures of their experience with a FSX or FS9 software add-on. In the mean time I peruse the forums to get an idea of the most talked about problems.The reviewers out there are doing a great job with what they have available to them and for what they are paid, nothing. I want to share my opinions on the add-ons that I have purchased, even old ones and new ones. Since I use FSX on two vastly different hardware profiles, high and low, I think it might be good for giving a picture as to a range of performance and the issues that might follow. But I will admit that the time involved in doing a review looks intimidating. I have respect for those that can post any well written review. It's tough.As far as the testing. I say it's the nature of the market. Learn how to avoid the dangers and as always research before you buy. Inconsistencies across hardware profiles is inevitable, so it's hard to avoid. Again research the support community before you buy and the problem is softened, haha.

Honestly Ed, even if you left the entire debug in there who cares... someone isn't going to reverse engineer something they can obviously hack together themselves. If you build a copy protection system, the person who breaks it obviously could have written the code himself because he knew exactly what you were doing. Removing the debug doesn't help one bit in that situation.

That would be incorrect assumption on your part. Copy protection requires cracking, it's only "obvious" when you leave indicators. Debug versions of code have screaming huge indicators.

In order to understand the problems discussed in this post, I think it is important to understand what a developer is up against when they produce their software. The technical challenges are enormous. I have about 48 years in the system and software field. Most of that time was spent in computer and network security system development. However, I did spend a good amount of time as an ordinary programmer. So, what does all that mean - it means I have a developer perspective that most users do not have. Here's my two cents.First, FS developers are faced with producing software that will work with three primary operating systems - XP, Vista, and Windows 7. Each of those operating systems have their own quirks which affect software running under their control. Think about how hard developer programming tasks are when faced with the daunting challenge of operating system environments.Second, FS comes in a number of flavors. Most developers are still programming products to operate under FS9 and FSX. I don't have to go into the details about this - it's a horrible situation mostly driven by user interest in both products. FSX is so different from FS9 that developers almost have to maintain two development houses to meet product demand. The technical issues here are staggering.Third, 99.99% of all programmers come with a built-in outlook - they are way too close to the trees to see the forest. This is not a negative slight - it's a fact of life. A programmer must be mired in the details otherwise the "coding" can't get into production. This means a developer must maintain a testing function - a paid testing function. This is not the same as reviewers. These testers are professionals closely associated with software development. BTW - if a developer does not have this testing function, their products are basically doomed. You can't use the user community for this type of testing.Now comes the tricky part. Developers, just like everyone else, have varying degrees of ego. They are proud of their accomplishments. They will naturally defend their work. After all, it cost money and much time to develop software. The really good developers must put a portion of this "ego" aside if they are to succeed in their respective business segments. Good developers WANT to have user feedback - it is essential. This feedback is vital to the effort of pulling back from the trees in order to see the forest. Since the application environment must deal with a number of operating systems and versions of FS, a good developer will have their professional testers run their products under the environments in which they will sell their products. In addition, they will enlist users who use the various FS versions and operating systems so the further "weeding out" of problems can take place. Again, if this is not happening, then what you get is a developer who uses the customer to test their software - this is NOT the way to operate a good business.Finally, any developer that chokes off user responses to their products should be avoided like the plague. A healthy user feedback mechanism will ensure that problems that fell through the cracks during production can be caught and patches made to fix the issues. In my opinion, we have a healthy FS community. There are numerous developer forums so that the customer can voice their concerns. Most developers are interested in getting their product bugs fixed. There is NOTHING better than a satisfied customer. I can assure you that the word will get out among the community concerning those developers that don't want your feedback. It's very simple - DON'T BUY THEIR PRODUCTS. This is the only way business improves.fb

In order to understand the problems discussed in this post, I think it is important to understand what a developer is up against when they produce their software. The technical challenges are enormous. I have about 48 years in the system and software field. Most of that time was spent in computer and network security system development. However, I did spend a good amount of time as an ordinary programmer. So, what does all that mean - it means I have a developer perspective that most users do not have. Here's my two cents.First, FS developers are faced with producing software that will work with three primary operating systems - XP, Vista, and Windows 7. Each of those operating systems have their own quirks which affect software running under their control. Think about how hard developer programming tasks are when faced with the daunting challenge of operating system environments.Second, FS comes in a number of flavors. Most developers are still programming products to operate under FS9 and FSX. I don't have to go into the details about this - it's a horrible situation mostly driven by user interest in both products. FSX is so different from FS9 that developers almost have to maintain two development houses to meet product demand. The technical issues here are staggering.Third, 99.99% of all programmers come with a built-in outlook - they are way too close to the trees to see the forest. This is not a negative slight - it's a fact of life. A programmer must be mired in the details otherwise the "coding" can't get into production. This means a developer must maintain a testing function - a paid testing function. This is not the same as reviewers. These testers are professionals closely associated with software development. BTW - if a developer does not have this testing function, their products are basically doomed. You can't use the user community for this type of testing.Now comes the tricky part. Developers, just like everyone else, have varying degrees of ego. They are proud of their accomplishments. They will naturally defend their work. After all, it cost money and much time to develop software. The really good developers must put a portion of this "ego" aside if they are to succeed in their respective business segments. Good developers WANT to have user feedback - it is essential. This feedback is vital to the effort of pulling back from the trees in order to see the forest. Since the application environment must deal with a number of operating systems and versions of FS, a good developer will have their professional testers run their products under the environments in which they will sell their products. In addition, they will enlist users who use the various FS versions and operating systems so the further "weeding out" of problems can take place. Again, if this is not happening, then what you get is a developer who uses the customer to test their software - this is NOT the way to operate a good business.Finally, any developer that chokes off user responses to their products should be avoided like the plague. A healthy user feedback mechanism will ensure that problems that fell through the cracks during production can be caught and patches made to fix the issues. In my opinion, we have a healthy FS community. There are numerous developer forums so that the customer can voice their concerns. Most developers are interested in getting their product bugs fixed. There is NOTHING better than a satisfied customer. I can assure you that the word will get out among the community concerning those developers that don't want your feedback. It's very simple - DON'T BUY THEIR PRODUCTS. This is the only way business improves.fb

+1. That's roughly what I meant to say. I think it makes a little more sence they way you said it.

Third, 99.99% of all programmers come with a built-in outlook - they are way too close to the trees to see the forest. This is not a negative slight - it's a fact of life. A programmer must be mired in the details otherwise the "coding" can't get into production. This means a developer must maintain a testing function - a paid testing function. This is not the same as reviewers. These testers are professionals closely associated with software development. BTW - if a developer does not have this testing function, their products are basically doomed. You can't use the user community for this type of testing.

What's that politically corrected statement "Too many chiefs not enough native americans". Too many programmers absolutely zero quality assurance. I've seen developer banners, but i've never seen anyone sport QA Lead.

Most programmers are so self confident and arrogant they think they don't need QA...