MD-11 for FSX fails on Win8 Pro 64bit - Fix

Hi,

I've recently upgraded to Windows 8 Pro 64 bit and have been flying the 737NGX  for quite a while without any major issues. Ending a flight in the 737NGX with ESC results in a FSX CTD. I simply press CTRL-C to exit straight out of FSX. No CTD.

Anyhow, let's move on to the MD-11. A couple of days ago I decided to install my MD-11 again. All went fine with the installation and activation until I selected the MD-11 in FSX under Free Flight. The usual "AIRAC loading" screen which pops up when you select the MD-11 didn't show. Clicking on Fly Now placed me inside a "Cold and dark" cockpit, with a twist. Everything was dead... displays, controls, sound... everything. I then decided to check the MD-11 Load Manager stand-alone application. It crashed with a weird error. Here's the entry from the Windows event log:

Activation context generation failed for "D:\Games\FSX\PMDG\MD11_LoadManager.exe". Dependent Assembly Microsoft.VC90.MFC,processorArchitecture="x86",publicKeyToken="1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b",type="win32",version="9.0.21022.8" could not be found. Please use sxstrace.exe for detailed diagnosis.

There were also similar entries for PMDGOptions.dll, PMDGEvents.dll and PMDGSounds.dll.

Running the MD-11 inside FSX didn't produce any errors, but as long as you stay in the "dead" cockpit the Windows event log is bombarded with the above event entry... the only difference is that it's now referencing the PMDG_MD11.DLL instead of the MD11_LoadManager.exe.

This led me to believe that I'm missing some Visual C++ files. The MD-11 installation did install some or other C++ redistributable, which was annoying as it was downloaded during the MD-11 install. So I have no idea which version this was. I assume it installed the 2010 redist  64bit.

FIX: What I did was to install Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable - x86 9.0.30729.17. The file is called vcredist_x86.exe. This is the 32bit version.

The MD-11 Load Manager started to work and the MD-11 came back to life in FSX.

Just thought I would post this for anyone else who might be running into this issue.

Jean Joubert