I was sitting around thinking about how everyone keeps their install of FSX organized. And I'm not just talking about the directory of where everything is installed but also, how you keep it organized in your start menu. With the huge amount of addons available, it can become hard to keep up with everything that is installed without it being a complete mess on your hard drive, desktop, and/or start menu. Let me hear your tips and thoughts. I'm sure something methods will come about to be quite helpful for some people.

Let me hear your tips and thoughts. I'm sure something methods will come about to be quite helpful for some people.

Organization...for me, more an ideal that I fail to meet than a reality, but I do have an approach that has served me well.1. several 'smaller' hard drives rather than a single massive one._OS on hdd0_FSX/FS9 on hdd1_addon FSX aircraft in separate folder external to FSX install_addon photo scenery on hdd2/hdd3 etcrationale: if everything is on 1 drive, drive failure destroys everything.easier to defrag a 250G drive than a 1T drivedata transfer (OS, game, scenery) is across a single data buss, but being read from separate drives the seek time is less.2. Applications and Utilities that do not require "install" go in separate "simpleApps" folder outside of program files.3. 'always in use' links stay on desktop-FSX-Plan-G-Teamspeak-fsx.cfg-scenery.cfg-current.cfg-previous.flt- etc4. most other links are in a fsx 'mini-menu' folder that is also a 'toolbar' and used like the Start Menu.mini-menu\apps (ADE, Sbuilder)\utilities ( fsxlogbook, cpuz, gpuz)\in FSX ( FSX folder, airplanes folder, addon aircraft, flights, Appdata)\Docs ( notes, and documentation)\CFG ( setup apps for addons: UT-usa, UT-Eur )\Screenshots\SDKHope you find this useful.edit: afterthoughtBACKUPSFSX (complete), all cfgs, standard.xml, appdata\simobjects (aircraft records), logbook,granted rewards, and almost every aircraft.cfg as orig_aircraft.cfg since I frequently kick extra passengers out and tweak a bit - then the customized cfg is saved also so a 'repair' won't destroy my adjustments (my_aircraft.cfg)Loyd

I trash everything off the start menu that I would not normally use from there by right clicking and deleting the entry. Most things you install add a start menu item when it is often completely unnecessary, for example, the Addictive Pitts start menu item only accesses either the uninstaller or lets you look at the license agreement; I'm not going to uninstall it, nor am I ever going to be arsed to read the licensing agreement, so that got removed.Al

I would place the links to oft-used file in a folder and only add the link to that single folder to the screen (to avoid screen clutter).Also if using multiple drives I would place scenery elevation maps in one drive, land-class, ground textures and photo-scenery on another and airports on a third for max concurrency (BW), with the OS on a fourth drive.For backups, just buy a single external 2 TBy HDD (quite cheap these days) and use Toucan freeware to copy-over only the new files or files that have changed.Use Tab=Synch, Function=Copy, FileChecks=(FileSize, ModifiedTime).Whatever's in the Left Pane will be copied to the Right Pane (but only it it's not in the Right Pane to begin width, i.e. an "Incremental Backup"). Works really well!Cheers,- jahman.

I have a folder on the desktop and place the shortcuts in there. I use terms in "comment" field of the shortcut properties, and use that to group into categories in windows 7 folder.scott s..

...I use terms in "comment" field of the shortcut properties, and use that to group into categories in windows 7 folder....

That's a nifty trick! All I could ever get was alpha sort by name (rather useless). Thanks for the tip!Cheers,- jahman.

That is pretty cool. I have to try that.