I am not having any issues currently, but have an "FSX hygiene" question:

 

I live in terror of Simconnect corruption. Normally a repair on Simconnect in Control Panel is safe, but may do nothing. Similarly, running the independent Simconnect installations available may not solve problems.

 

But, here's the real bear: WinSxS (side-by-side assemblies). Read up on what WinSxS is, if you want to have some real bit-bucket nightmares!

 

Is it sufficient upon deciding to reinstall Simconnect to simply delete the relevant entries for Simconnect in the WinSxS folder prior to reinstalling the Simconnects? Or is it way more complicated than that?

 

I know a careful - and time consuming - solution is to go thru the multiple cycles of uninstalling the FSX SP2 and SP1 and then reinstalling them. But I'm looking for decisive info on whether there's a less time-consuming way to do that.

 

Why this matters: a lot of the more sophisticated recent add-ons rely on Simconnect; and it sounds like it can get mysteriously corrupted.

 

So it lives like a ticking time bomb at the heart of FSX.

 

And it would be great to have a reliable set of the simplest, safest steps possible to deal with it when it goes off.

 

It may just be that we have to continue to rely on the uninstall/reinstall process; I'm just hoping that might not be the case.

 

Thanks!

Probably could answer your question but since I'm no " expert". Im not qualified.

What I mean is simply that I'd prefer a clear informed answer to random casual guessing or urban legend, which is all too pervasive on the Internet. Sorry if that's offended you.

 

Assume this topic might be something someone Googled and read sometime in the future. I wouldn't want them to get all screwed up by half-information.

 

AVSIM has a dedicated forum for SimConnect.  I think the expert center for figuring out issues with Simconnect is over at the FSDevelopers.com website.

 

Best regards,

Jim

Hi Jim,

 

Thanks, sorry, right -- Tapatalk often makes things invisible.  Thanks for the reference.

 

Steven

But, here's the real bear: WinSxS (side-by-side assemblies). Read up on what WinSxS is, if you want to have some real bit-bucket nightmares!

 

 

Side-by-side isn't really that confusing. It allows each app to pick the version of a DLL that it needs to use. There are a bunch of SimConnect versions out there, because of the various versions of FSX and also P3D. There are even beta and hacked versions of SimConnect.DLL floating around the Internet. When you install any app that uses SimConnect it checks to see whether that app's version is already installed by perusing:

 

C:\Windows\WinSxS\

 

There you will find a bunch folders named like this:

 

x86_microsoft.flightsimulator.simconnect_67c7c14424d61b5b_10.0.60905.0_none_dd92b94d8a196297

 

The SimConnect.dll file version 10.0.60905.0 will be found in this folder.

 

 

The manifest file for each app will tell the app which version to use.  For example, the manifest file for TrackIR when running with FSX SP2 looks like this:

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8' standalone='yes'?>
<assembly xmlns='urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1' manifestVersion='1.0'>
  <dependency>
    <dependentAssembly>
      <assemblyIdentity type='win32' name='Microsoft.FlightSimulator.SimConnect' version='10.0.61259.0' processorArchitecture='x86' publicKeyToken='67c7c14424d61b5b' />
    </dependentAssembly>
  </dependency>
 ...
</assembly>

which shows you that if you are running FSX SP2, then TrackIR will use the unique SimConnect version 10.0.61259.0.

 

None of this really has anything to do with SimConnect itself, but rather explains how Windows allows multiple versions of a DLL to coexist. When an app has more than one manifest file, then it generally calls another DLL first which then determines what sim is running and then the "helper" DLL decides both the proper manifest file and version of SimConnect.DLL.

Thank you; that's all I was looking for, a little enlightenment. 

 

I'm not likely to fiddle mindlessly with the details, but I'm always interested to know what is going on. I'm familiar enough with XML to understand the example manifest you post above.  The publicKeyToken, for instance, is identified both by the folder name and within the XML string, which I assume is a hash that helps the app identify the proper dynamic linked library to run.

 

This is very helpful, much appreciated.

 

Forum admins can move this to Simconnect if they wish, in case it's of interest to anyone else looking for such info.

 

Steven