Doing it the HARD way ...

[jcomm 5,918]

On my last P3D install ( still up :-) ) I was up to testing the new friction coeficients as set through FSUIPC and a very handy LUA script, but I couldn't resist installing, again, some of my best / historical add-ons for this simulator... Problem is, I no longer have FSX installed. 

 

I also didn't have the Estonian Migration Tool with me, and that great tool is particularly useful if you want to run both sims on the same Windows install. Not my case, so, I decided to make use of the suggestions made by this  LM Prepar3d Document about installing FSX add-ons in P3D.

 

What we need, if we do not have / want FSX installed in parallel, is to at least have a backup of it's FSX.exe because some installers check it to determine compatibility requirements. In my case a backup of the Acceleration version of FSX.exe was all I needed.

 

Then, while there are installers that simply accept being pointed to the folder where you "say" FSX is installed, and can then be "fooled" by pointing them to your P3D folder, the suggestion of using the Tweak FS Registry in that LM document made me use it to create a registry record for the FSX install folder pointing exactly to my P3D folder :-)

 

Other installers also "want" to find folders like: 

 

C:\Users\<your user>\Documents\Flight Simulator X Files 

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\FSX

C:\Users\<your user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\FSX 

C:\Users\<your user>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX

 

This was the case with most of my older Aerosoft add-ons, like Madeira and Lukla. So, here comes the "HARD" of the tilte. I decided to use hard links. They work great in Windows just as they do in systems like Unix / Linux and VMS... I've used them there many times, and it's so easy... Check it here, or here...

 

Here's an example of how I created a hard link with the name of the FSX folder under the "ProgramData" folder pointing to the corresponding P3D folder. With this any installer looking for this path will make it's writing in the P3D folder and "think" it did the writing for FSX :-)

 

 

Hard links, or any file / folder links, can also be removed. "rmdir link-name" removes a folder link. Beware that anything done ( good or bad ) to a hard linked folder will be directly effective in the target folder!!!

 

The DOS window where you give those commands should be opened in Admin mode ( run as administrator ). Folder paths should be enclosed in " " because most include spaces!  

 

The above link created the following entry under C:\ProgramData\Microsoft:

 

 

Until now it worked for me, but don't try it at home without first backing up your folders, and you should be familiar with the use of DOS command line prompt and commands!

 

In my case the created hard links were:

 

C:\Users\<your user>\Documents\Flight Simulator X Files --> C:\Users\<your user>\Documents\Prepar3D Files

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\FSX --> C:\ProgramData\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D

C:\Users\<your user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\FSX --> C:\Users\<your user>\AppData\Local\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D

C:\Users\<your user>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX --> C:\Users\<your user>\AppData\Roaming\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D

 

with the source and target listed like: source --> target

[jcomm 5,918]

Ah! One more thing...

 

Should an installer require access to a file / folder not mentioned above, simply create, in the appropriate place, a file or folder hardlink to that location, giving the source the name the installer is complaining about, and pointing it to a target in your P3D install. For instance, some installers may require access to FSX.CFG, so, move to your P3D config files folder, something like:

 

C:\Users\<your user>\AppData\Roaming\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D

 

and create there a file hardlink like, for instance:  

 

mklink  /h  FSX.CFG  Prepar 3D.CFG

 

Don't forget to start your DOS command prompt as Admin!

 

Again, this all assumes you are NOT willing to run FSX together with P3D in your PC!