Hello.Can anyone recommend a utility that will allow me to export gauges for specific aircraft in FS2004? I know there are a couple out there that will allow you to remove an aircraft and the gauges that go with it but that isn't what I want to do. If it has the ability to do that as well then I guess that would be a bonus.There used to be one or two for FS2002 but I haven't seen any yet that work with FS2004.If you know of one I'd like to try it out.Thanks!

export? it's just a file you can copy, cut, paste, delete... or am i missing something?

True. But, there is no way to tell which gauge file(s) go with which aircraft. At least without digging indepth through the panel.cfg file.Let me try to put it another way...Let's say you have two machines running flightsim and you want to transfer an aircraft from one machine to the other. Well moving the aircraft is one thing. Getting the panel, and all of it's associated files, over is another story.

I believe that cfgEdit will allow you to do this.

Maybe one of the people who have already made a gauge/aircraft deletion program will modify it to allow just moving the gauges to another location :-yellow1

I think the easiest way out of this, provided the two sim versions are the same, is to copy the entire contents of the main gauges folder (not the main folder itself or you could overwrite an entire gauges folder instead of adding to it) to the main gauges folder in the other sim. To be on the safe side you could avoid copying any folders at all and just copy stand alone gauge files until you have checked that the same folder does not exist within the main gauges folder in the other sim. At least that way you can guarantee that all the gauges not currently in the other sim you need will be added. If you are prompted to allow overwriting of a newer file with an older one, say no, likewise if you are prompted to allow overwriting of a file that is exactly the same date and time as the one being copied you could safely say no, since it means the file is already there. Any files and/or folders not present will be added without a prompt. However, I'm not entirely sure if any files already in the other sim's gauges folder would be overwitten but it's a small risk as most files of the same name should be exactly the same date and time, otherwise you should definitely get a prompt. The only problem I can see with this method (I don't think there is much choice for another viable method though)is that you might end up with a gauge folder that has some gauges you may never need. The only other way I know is to look at each panel.cfg for every aircraft you want to transfer and search out each gauge one by one and copy it over, then you still don't know if the gauge is already in the other sim's folder unless you check first and in a lot of cases any cab files will not reveal what gauges are contained in it unless you use Winzip or something similar to open the cab. That I think would take a very long time. Some aircraft have their gauges in the aircraft's folder itself, there should be no problem with that as the required gauges are already with the model which would be copied in any case. Also there are gauges that require other files to work, such as wav files which would usually be found in the main sounds folder. Those files would need copying also. There may be other file types, but in the main I think this is the best you can do to accomplish what you want. Finally I can't accept responsibility if anything goes wrong as a result of my information. I have submitted it only because you want an answer and I think it is the only one practically possible. All I can guarantee is that if I wanted to accomplish the same thing I would do it that way.

Thanks but that isn't a solution for what I need to do.I know it's possible because some of the gauge deletion utilities (remove aircraft) for FS2002 did it. I guess nobody who has made one yet for FS2004 has included this feature yet though. It can't be all that tough to do. Instead of deleting the files all it would be doing is copying them to the user determined location.I guess I'll just have to wait until somebody includes this option in their utility. I'm not a programmer or I would do it myself.

Just a thought: What should be so different about FS9 to FS2002 with regard to searching certain file types and moving them? I'm wondering if xml gauges are the problem as that is the only possible difference I can think of. I'm not sure if FS2002 can use xml gauges but they were perhaps not so common then, even if they were used on some planes. The utility you are talking about might work for older planes with the older gauges in FS9. I don't know if you tried that yet. It might be that someone needs to find a way of seeking xml files so as to enable copying/moving them. The structure of xml gauges is quite different as far as I can see, being made up of bitmaps and xml code files for each gauge type and all guages in a group then assembled together in a cab file. This could make it difficult or perhaps impossible to achieve what you want.

Maybe, but I don't see how because instead of deleting the files the program would simply be moving them instead.

I use one that the author calls fsGauges Version 2.00.It makes a listing, see the screenie...From the author's readme..Probe For Missing Gauges:Scans your panel.cfg and alias files to determine which gauges are missing. Show All Gauges:List ALL gauges - in ALL aircraft configurations. CleanGauges:There is also a section of the program that will move gauges that are no longer being used to a "SpareGauges" folder and delete them from your "Gauges" directory. It doesn't gather the gauges up and move them anywhere unless you tell it to. And then it's an all or nothing proposition. But it will identify the gauges you need. It says it's FS2002 but it works fine in FS2004. You just have to fool it into thinking that FS2004 is FS2002.Here's screen capture and hope it helps...