I have the Ariane 737-900 (and some other of their products), and I must say that I never ever had the slightest problem with their support.I already sent them numerous mails, and every single was answered in detail.And, I don't see any difficulties in installing neither the base software nor any updates.PCs, Windows and FS are complex things, and most Windows users in this world are unable to perform even the simplest operations (do you know the difference between "save" and "save as"?).I'm an IT professional since many, many years, I know all these problems too good. Expecting a PC to act like a Playstation is pure illusion, but that's exaclty what people assume a PC to be. It's not, so lots of learning is required to handle the software.FS is only as good as the underlying Windows installation is. And if you don't know how to administer program installations and how to troubleshoot FS problems, you can only hire a professional doing that for you, costing real money.Sad, but true. How many CTDs are caused by faulty hardware alone?Andreas

I am an IT professional as well, and I also do product support, and NEVER in my career, have I insinuated that perhaps the user is too stupid or dense to use my product.Sure we all laugh at the urban legend about the Compaq employee who told a customer to box up his computer and send it back because he was too stupid to own one. (The customer was supposedly calling Compaq because his computer wasn't working....In the middle of a power outage....)However, no one I know would knowingly and intentionally insult and berate a customer, no matter what his experience is with a PC.The reason why people expect PC's to act like a Playstation, is because that is EXACTLY what PC manufacturers and Software manufacturers want you to believe.Graphical User Interfaces, Plug and Play, USB, Windows Update, etc.. All these are examples of the industry trying their hardest to make computers easy enough for the common man to use. And judging on my 7 year olds ability to surf the web, and draw pretty amazing pictures, I would say that they have succeeded.It wasn't long ago when we were all booting our computers in DOS, having to modify config.sys and autoexec.bat files to load the drivers for our peripherals, load memory managers like Quarterbacks QEMM and Microsofts MemMaker, to try and make sense out of conventional memory, expanded memory and enhanced memory.While everything you say is true, the real truth is that it is good for the industry that people think that a PC is much like a Playstation, in the ease of use department. And in a majority of cases this is true.Many of us IT professional who used to take a geeky pleasure of having what we felt was proprietary knowledge in our field, are being smacked around by reality when we see our 14 year old daughters, in one afternoon, author and host a webpage that includes imbedded video, graphics, and music, and have us scratching our heads, how the Heck did she do that?!?. What's even more insulting.... She wouldn't know a piece of HTML if it rose up and bit her in the butt.Regardless of how threatened we feel by the "common man" entering into our until recently private, geeky, domain, it still is no excuse to make an installation protocol that is overly confusing to the end user, and then suggest, if they have problems, perhaps they aren't smart enough to use their product in the first place.That's just plain arrogance. But considering the past history of Arianes Leadership, it's not too suprising either.

Andreas,To some extend, you're right. But may I point out to you that you don't know me (how could you?) at all. I'm building and maintaining pc's for the last ten years, not only for myself but for quite some friends, relatives and customers so I do know how a pc works (inside and outside)Another point you make... Indeed, the -900 is flying fine but I don't think it is fair to call the installation a breeze. And even if it were a breeze, even then a programmer can't expect his customers to be as knowledgeable as himself.And, I have mastered more 'complex' aircraft than this -900. With some 4000 logged hours I have tried and flown them all (right now the PSS Concorde). So I don't like it a bit that some programmer tells me that I'm too stupid. Maybe I am too stupid, not to fly his plane, but to understand his not so logic installation routine.Last but not least, I want to point out one of the rules in life. Making a mistake is not so bad, not knowing how to correct it is terrible. Why? Because you are showing to the world that you didn't knew what you were doing i in the first place.The same goes into programming. Making a program for Windows is one thing. Creating the correct lines to uninstall that same program from windows is quite some other thing. That's where you know who is master and who's just fiddling around.Well, just try to uninstall that -900 with the enclosed uninstall... What bothers me most is the profound lack of courtesy and support. After reading some of the comments here, I think I realise who's behind Ariane (I didn't know that) and I will steer clear from their software from now on. In fact I think I will call the creditcard cie to block the payment. Maybe that will stirr things up a bit on the Ariane side of things.Any wayTo all who who have written down their thoughts here, it's a relief to know that a lot of people still care about things and create some kind of support without being paid for.Thanks guys

What bothers me most is the profound lack of courtesy and support. After reading some of the comments here, I think I realise who's behind Ariane (I didn't know that) and I will steer clear from their software from now on.Yes. It's an insult to suggest that we're just dumb if we can't figure out the installation. I tried again to install and now I can't even get past getting a view of the craft. It's the worst disjointed installation I've ever seen for a $100+ Canadian product and even more inane trying to install the patches. Moreover, I've flow a lot of complex addons - PMDGs 737 series, PIC A320, SSW's A310, etc. and I've yet to get the AP to engage and fly the bloody route. It's a mess. And I'm profoundly disappointed in this product. I'll never buy from them again.

Will,Been watching football lately? ;-) I think QEMM was made by Quarterdeck, not Quarterback. I do NOT miss those days trying to configure everything (including the OS shell) to run in the 640mb memory block, with everything else stacked in extended memory and swapping like crazy. QEMM was a godsend in its day.BTW, excellent point on the proper way to support users. The prior response was way out of line coming from a computer "professional."Bruce

You are indeed correct. It was Quarterdeck, and it was a Godsend. As much as I liked the feeling of "control" that we had back in the good ole DOS days, I don't miss all the different configuring you had to do to get something to run.

I'm sorry to hear these things about the Ariane people. As I said, I never ever had any problem. They're polite, and even during the Christmas holidays, they responded my mails in under 1 hr!I installed the -900NG already 4 times after complete re-installs, and neither the installation nor the FMC activation (which I was frightened of because of the strange rules Arianes put on this) caused me any headache.I find it more complicated to install the freeware PA-22 with the "old" classic panel...Anyway, I didn't regret my purchase, and as long as things stay this way, I occasionally pull the -900 out of the hangar and fly her. Always a somehow nice experience, even when doing it all in the VC...And, things could be worse: I have the SSW A310, look at their (at this moment for the n-th time unavailable) website to get support, or try to get at Captain Sim's forums...Andreas

>I'm sorry to hear these things about the Ariane people. As I>said, I never ever had any problem. They're polite, and even>during the Christmas holidays, they responded my mails in>under 1 hr!>>I installed the -900NG already 4 times after complete>re-installs, and neither the installation nor the FMC>activation (which I was frightened of because of the strange>rules Arianes put on this) caused me any headache.>>I find it more complicated to install the freeware PA-22 with>the "old" classic panel...>>Anyway, I didn't regret my purchase, and as long as things>stay this way, I occasionally pull the -900 out of the hangar>and fly her. Always a somehow nice experience, even when doing>it all in the VC...>>And, things could be worse: I have the SSW A310, look at their>(at this moment for the n-th time unavailable) website to get>support, or try to get at Captain Sim's forums...>>AndreasI couldn't agree better. I have never experienced a problem with their support. The activation is no more or no less pain as it was with the first PMDG release of the 737 or with the WindowsXP activation.Their external power tug, is part of the VCe -900. you don't need to purchase their additional extension. Depending on your key assingments you have to activate before you can have groundpower. Remember, PIC767 had such a thing too. ;) For me this is CTRL - SHIFT - PHowever, i am not feeling confortable flying any VC's. Doesn't matter if Ariane PMDG, PSS or whatever the developer is called. That's a very personal opinion. Maybe other feel the same. But we cannot blame the developer, to be bad, just because he only added a VC, as an example. We purchased the product and we knew what we were doing.I got an A340, purchased in December 2003 from Aviosgraf. May i remember you that the product costed 40 Euros, and the product is still unflyable. ;)Ariane has a nice 737, overpaid but good. If you want more stuff, for less money, why you don't get the PDMG 737. You definitly have/had the choice ;) And the PMDG 737 is aswell a very nice product.CheersMartin

Agree, VC's aren't my thing, too. I need everything quickly available. VCs lack this kind of management, and they in addition have bad restrictions regarding gauge update and clarity. 2D rules for me, and will in the forseeable future.Re the A430 from Aviograsf: it's slowly evolving. I have the latest beta (the team announced this will be the last one before the patch release), but there seem to be still some glitches in it. But at least the bird is well flyable now, and the transition to GDI+ vectorized gauges is made. And, the flight guidance is much, much better (beta testing is so time consuming...).Remember, Airbus simulations are extremely complex, so I consider the Aviograsf project to extend well into the FS2006 era. Aviograsf is not the fastest, but they keep developing steadily. The bird is definitely the closest-to-real A3xx sim ever, no other has this depth and functional elements.Andreas