Oooh, I've almost decided to get Zurich, but after reading this topic it looks like a lottery. I like it in trial mode and don't want Aerosoft one. Tricky situation indeed.

Oooh, I've almost decided to get Zurich, but after reading this topic it looks like a lottery. I like it in trial mode and don't want Aerosoft one. Tricky situation indeed.

Dont be dramtic with the "lottery" or "tricky" business. If you like the product in trial mode you will like it in purchased mode as well.

 

Most problems with this software are user end and Umberto can usually fix them 99% of the time.

 

However if you read this forum you will see some people prefer to be dramatic and not seek his help, rather they chose to rant and complain and try trouble shooting on their own.

Oooh, I've almost decided to get Zurich, but after reading this topic it looks like a lottery. I like it in trial mode and don't want Aerosoft one. Tricky situation indeed.

This airport is one of my FSDT products. It's a nice add on airport.

 

I have to agree though, that add on manager can be a bit of a pain sometimes. Having said that, once you get things working right, you can forget about it and enjoy these great add on airports.

 

With respect to that pesky pop-up window regarding updates, can this not be changed to occur when you first boot FSX, rather than when you have just clicked " Fly Now" ?

I too get tired of going to one of their airports and see only jetways, which means I will probably have to download the bloody thing again. They are about the only developer that I have to jump through hoops just to keep them showing in my sim. Very annoying. Some aren't very fps friendly either. On the up side, great looking airports.

With respect to that pesky pop-up window regarding updates, can this not be changed to occur when you first boot FSX, rather than when you have just clicked " Fly Now" ?

Yes you can disable auto updates by changing it in the ini file. See their forum for help how to do it if you cant find/figure it out.

Yes you can disable auto updates by changing it in the ini file. See their forum for help how to do it if you cant find/figure it out.

 

 

It wouldn't matter two bit.  I tried the option to not update and yet I found that it needs to be the latest and the greatest stuff..  this is is a never ending Pain in the butt.

 

FSDT airports are crapshoot if it would be there when you approach to land,

 

So I never try to plan a flight with a TO to an FSDT airport.. my destination aiports are Fly Tampa, Taxi2gate or Aerosoft  or other vendors airports for  I know for certain the airport is going to be there when I approach after  2-10 hrs of flight.

 

I do take off from an FSDT airport...and for that I could have used the demo version.

 

I do own all their (FSDT) airports.. if I had known this would have been the experience I could have just been happy with their demo version to be used for FROM airport.

And today you can update without closing down FSX.

Yes you can disable auto updates by changing it in the ini file. See their forum for help how to do it if you cant find/figure it out.

Thanks for that, I was not aware.

 

Regards,

 

 

FSDT airports are crapshoot if it would be there when you approach to land,

 

I seriously wonder why that is happening to you. Since I fly mainly in the US and 95% of my NGX and T7 trips are between (depart one and arrive at another) FSDT airports, I have never had this happen in the 5 or so years I have had them installed on two different computers. Although I dont have any security software installed on my FS rig and any default MS security is turned off aside from the firewall, I can be sure that my security stuff or lack of, isn't interfering or blocking any modules from working. Plus I dont run any other programs besides ASN while in FSX. Maybe there is some type of app or other programming running in the background that is causing it.

 

I can see why you would say its a crap shoot if I were in your shoes, but for someone that has never had any issues with their products causing any anomalies like that, its hard for me to understand why they display this behavior on your rig.

but for someone that has never had any issues with their products causing any anomalies like that, its hard for me to understand why they display this behavior on your rig.

 

 

Do you constantly keep updating their install manager?  Which is pretty much every other week or so I think. I don't have gsx and I don't care to update gsx update which they seem to put out all the time.

 

 

Do you constantly keep updating their install manager?  Which is pretty much every other week or so I think. I don't have gsx and I don't care to update gsx update which they seem to put out all the time.

 

No I haven't updated in a long time, maybe since July or August. In fact I rarely even get the update notification and when I do, I just hit the ignore update and dont get asked again for weeks, even months.

 

I do have GSX installed as well as all the airports except the stuff for Hawaii and Vancouver I do have installed but never purchased it. I just installed it to see if the performance problems I read about were justified, which after testing I never saw any problems with. But since its out of the way for me, I never purchased.

 

I will probably grab the whole new GSX installer and Addon Manager update one of these days just to capture all the updates I have missed out on for the last 6 months. I just need the GSX installer to grab all it updates for the cargo loaders and stuff so that I can do it in a one stop shop.

I own all of the fsdt airports and  gsx  and havnt had  the update popup for  ages  forgot  there was one,  seems strange that users are having problems  so must be pc related issues

the update popup for  ages  forgot  there was one,

 

In that case you probably do have a problem with Virtuali (there have been many updates - especially if you have all the products - as  I do) ... most likely the because the updater is launched under the security context of the calling application (be in FSX or P3D) and will inherit that context limitation (or none if being run as Administrator) ... so if you aren't seeing updates then most likely the updater is failing to execute at all because of that security context restriction.  Shell runs under a security context.

 

It should also be noted that Couatl.exe was NOT digitally signed until very recently - Oct 30, 2013 (by COMODO)  A digitally signed executable or dll will have different OS security processing than one that isn't signed.  Does it cost money to get a code signing certificate?  Yes it does (not a lot of money and they can be used for more than one application) and there is a background check associated with the digitally signed certificate.  I am glad Virtuali finally got one - positive move.

 

Also, it appears some of the airports are using FS8 legacy stuff which is definitely not conducive to P3DV2.  Telling LM to fix their legacy FS8 support (circa 2001) rather than adjust their FSDT/FB product?  Do you really want LM to work with FS8 SDK (some 13 years old)?

 

Are FSDT and Flightbeam airports nice, yes they are, is GSX nice, yes it is ... that's never been a point of contention for me.  The frustration isn't with the airports or GSX, it's with the "it's all your fault" support responses ... take a look at the response pattern on FSDT forums, you notice something very similar ... it's always "something the user did and our product is perfect soon followed up by there maybe an unrelated problem" ... come on, end users are intentionally trying to make airports disappear?  What is our motivation to do this even if we knew how - we're reporting a problem?  Coming back saying "the problem doesn't exist and it's all in your head or how your PC is configured" isn't a solution and isn't helpful.  If you don't want to deal with end users reporting issues, then simply say "we'll look into it" and leave it at that.

edit 

It should also be noted that Couatl.exe was NOT digitally signed until very recently - Oct 30, 2013 (by COMODO)  A digitally signed executable or dll will have different OS security processing than one that isn't signed.  Does it cost money to get a code signing certificate?  Yes it does (not a lot of money and they can be used for more than one application) and there is a background check associated with the digitally signed certificate.  I am glad Virtuali finally got one - positive move.

 

I'm sorry sorry, but that's not the case.

 

We have a (paid) authenticode certificate since 2006 and since then, ALL our executables were ALWAYS been digitally signed, both the .exe, the .dlls and the installers themselves.

 

I think you are confusing here with the timestamp of when *that* particular version of the Couatl.exe installed on your system has been digitally signed, but that's doesn't have anything to do with when we got our certificate. If we released a new Couatl.exe today, you would see today's date on that field.

 

To know the issuing date of the certificate itself, you should press the "View Certificate" button, and for the current one, it will say that is valid from 2012 to 2016. Why not from 2006, as I've said ? Because, that's the 4th certificate renewal, I used to buy them bi-annually, the one we use now is a 4 years certificate, when you renew a certificate, you are in fact receiving a new one.

 

We digitally sign our executables since when FSX was released, which has the feature to check for it, otherwise displaying the scary "unknown publisher" red warning.

 

And the funny thing is, FSX HAS A BUG with that "feature" that, sometimes, for reasons unknown, a digitally signed executable fails at random, displaying the "3d party module might not be safe" warning, which a Windows reboot fixes most of the times.

 

Case in point, FS9 didn't check digital certificates, and P3D doesn't either, and that message never, ever, appears on FS9 or P3D, which is particularly telling in case of P3D, since the bglmanx.dll executable is *exactly* the same.

 

So, we either we keep paying money every year to maintain a digital certificate and give users peace of mind the executable hasn't been corrupted/altered, by using the digital certificate AND risk the bogus "3d party module might not be safe" warning OR we save money, don't sign anymore, don't risk seeing that message, but instead we would get the OTHER scary message about the module might not be safe, because of the unknown publisher.

 

No wonder LM has got rid of this in P3D...

 

 

 

 take a look at the response pattern on FSDT forums, you notice something very similar ... it's always "something the user did and our product is perfect soon followed up by there maybe an unrelated problem" ... come on, end users are intentionally trying to make airports disappear?

 

I think there must be an huge misunderstanding here: I NEVER implied an user willingly did something "wrong". I always said than, when we eventually find what was really causing the problem on an user system, it's never a fault of the software, and it was always something else, but that doesn't obviously mean it was the "user's fault"!

 

Fact is, most users don't even know they have a problem in their own system, the problem is there, they are just lucky that other installed products are not affected by it, so they only noticed it when encountering a problem with our modules, which only exposed an issue they already had without knowing.

 

Last week an user on our forum had the usual issue of the modules not running so, after trying all the usual suggestion, I told him to try an FSX "Repair", using the official Repair procedure included in the FSX installer. Well, according to the last report, FSX wasn't even able to repair itself! FSX or Windows itself was probably compromised beyond repair, up to a point that the repair option failed with strange errors. Neverless to say, the user reported that, after reinstalling Windows, EVERYTHING worked flawlessly.

 

That's just an example of what I meant: it wasn't obviously the user's fault, but it wasn't our software fault either: it was just running in a compromised environment, and it worked normally as soon the real underlying problem was solved.

 

And no, it's not that "you have to reinstall Windows to use our software", if you end up in a situation that not even the standard FSX repair option can complete, you ARE going to reinstall Windows very soon anyway, because something else, maybe not even related to flight sim, will fail.