I agree wholeheartedly with what has already been said 'no support for FSX from MS' so what, who cares. There is more than enough support and knowledge on Avsim than anywhere else on the internet. Besides, when was the last time some of the doomsday brigade contacted MS for support about FSX? Very few I suspect, and to be honest, IMO the support for FSX around here is likely to be as good if not better than any that MS would have given. The best thing that anyone can do who is concerned with reinstallation issues, is to make a small investment into Acronis backup or something similar. That way if you have a problem with reinstallation at least everything can be put back to how it was originally. As for transferring FSX to a new machine, well I have done that, so have many others, with no problems with any of the licensing concerns. Besides, as we all know, there is P3D and to be honest I'm getting a frustrated at guys banging on about the licensing and that it cannot be used for entertainment purposes. Well, I guess it depends on how you view it. The same guys with those concerns maybe the same guys who regard and describe FSX as a game, which often happens around here and always grates with me. Personally, for me, it is a flight simulator and I use it to educate myself about flying, as I have always been involved with flying one way or another. Sometime in the future I hope to try for my PPL.. so fellas, is it for entertainment, no, it is to educate me on flying and make me more knowledgeable. Do I find it entertaining? Of course I do, but exactly the same as if I went flying for real, or are we not allowed to be entertained at the same time as being educated? :smile: BTW, sorry fellas, hope I didn't go too far off topic.

 

Good statements and very encouraging =). I guess the announcement just really brought it home that MS has finally hammered the nails in the coffin with this series. Maybe some of us, despite all rationale, were hoping in some part of ourselves that it might have turned out different.

Dose Fargain Icehole Bastages!

 

No really, I activated just a couple of days ago because of a Fargain Icehole harddrive crash.

 

:lol:

Now it's time for Microsoft to announce that they are releasing the next Flight Simulator! (No not Flight) - Yeah right. I suppose they won't be addressing the controller issue with FSX and Windows 8 then. Will have to use other fixes instead

Good statements and very encouraging =). I guess the announcement just really brought it home that MS has finally hammered the nails in the coffin with this series. Maybe some of us, despite all rationale, were hoping in some part of ourselves that it might have turned out different.

 

Sure, I agree, it's always sad when something goes 'to the wall' and we feel like we have somehow lost something. But hey, we move on and look to the future, and I don't think for one minute things are as black as some of the doomsayers paint.

I thought I was reading Chicken Little there for a moment... The sky is falling!!!!! The sky is falling!!!

 

:lol:

 

I was thinking more "Lord of The Rings" and that nasty chap who lives in Mordor...

Activation is only an occasional issue, and I suspect its long been a formality anyway. Loss of the real world weather servers is likely to be a bigger problem for users day to day. Sure, you can get FSX weather from VATSIM or IVAO but what if you don't fly online? The future status of this service must be determined. If Microsoft are going to drop it, perhaps another host could take it over?

Maby they are trying to punish us for making Flight a Flop lol

LOL ... probably

Dose Fargain Icehole Bastages!

 

No really, I activated just a couple of days ago because of a Fargain Icehole harddrive crash.

 

The lousy cork-soakers!

Loss of the real world weather servers is likely to be a bigger problem for users day to day. Sure, you can get FSX weather from VATSIM or IVAO but what if you don't fly online? The future status of this service must be determined. If Microsoft are going to drop it, perhaps another host could take it over?

 

Or use any third-party weather engine that gets its data elsewhere. Even the freeware ones are much better than stock fsx.

 

Really, Microsoft's announcement looks like a non-event to me. Support for FSX was already dropped years ago. It just took them a while to notice it and issue a statement.

Here in Brazil, a friend of a sim forum contacted Microsoft Brazil and they confirmed the end of support, BUT activations still works normaly without closure date. So, in the end, nothing changed in my opinion.

Is activation actually locked into the software? What I mean is, can't Microsoft "unlock" the activation for all copies of FSX now that support has been dropped?

 

Or use any third-party weather engine that gets its data elsewhere. Even the freeware ones are much better than stock fsx.

 

Really, Microsoft's announcement looks like a non-event to me. Support for FSX was already dropped years ago. It just took them a while to notice it and issue a statement.

Payware like Active Sky is expensive and an additional load on the system. What third party freeware is available that is at least as good as FSX real weather?

 

I agree the general reaction here is way over the top, let's wait till we see exactly what MS are withdrawing, but weather is potentially a serious problem to be overcome.

-There is a freeware weather tool out there which is much more versatile as the default FSX weather engine, although it lacks some functions of payware like AS2012. As far as I know, flight weather is provided either by jepessen (as part of a real world weather information system for aviation) or by the respective publisher of the weather program.

 

-About activation again: lets understand how capitalism works on that one. TO be able to offer support, you got to have some experts at your company (what a laugh) that know the product well enough to offer any support, as long with the systems to contact them, phone operators and so on, this is pretty expensive ......activation is different, its a central server where all MS product keys are stored in a database and compared on request. MS can keep the FSX serials in there virtually for good at no cost, because it only takes a few GB of space and some bandwith to store and process them, but you do not have to keep personell in the company who are specialized in FSX. So, I don't think this will be in danger....

Payware like Active Sky is expensive and an additional load on the system. What third party freeware is available that is at least as good as FSX real weather?

 

FSRealWXlite to just name one. You could strip FSX down to the core and use feeware/patware addons to run it all day. Weather, traffic etc.

Halting support for a software of anykind after 7 yrs is not unusall. Many are 5yrs. I dont see the FS2004 forum abuzz because their support ended yrs ago

Payware like Active Sky is expensive and an additional load on the system. What third party freeware is available that is at least as good as FSX real weather?

 

Kevin,

 

FSrealWX lite if you are after a free weather engine. As for the additional load on the system, the problem is rarely the engine itself but more how FSX copes with the complexity of weather you ask it to render with such a program. (Hi-res textures, multiple cloud layers,...). It's just a question of setting the right options and sensibly adjusting the sliders.