Hi All,Yes, I've been away for a very long time. Other hobbies pulled me in other directions. But I'm trying to get back in the game. I bought CoF (a real bargain when you don't try to buy it hot off the presses), and I've got WidevieW working with version 9. So now I'm faced with upgrading to v9.1, and after some searching of old threads, it's unclear to me if the outstanding issues with the patch warrant the upgrade. But I'll confess that I really don't want to take the time to read through 7+ pages of threads, and I'm looking for a kind soul or two to chime in with their opinion(s) on the matter.I'm only doing this because I want to install version 2.0 of WidevieW, and I want to get the sim in final form before proceeding. It's worth pointing out that I have the "cracked" version of the executable because running WidevieW isn't feasible if the CD is required (oh the horrors - shame on me ;-) ). From reading the patch notes, it sounds like this will create more installation headaches (is there a "cracked" exe for 9.1?).Thanks all - maybe I'll see you in the virtual skies soon?

You need the original exe intact when patching yes.Otherwise with the patch it

No installation headaches unless you have an illegal copy of FS installed.Performance is a bit better, things seem a tad more stable.

Definitely worth it. Replace the hacked .exe with the original from a backup or from the FS9 CD's, run the patch and you're done.After updating, and if you don't want to keep the CD in the drive when playing the sim, you'll have to either download the updated cdcrack for FS9.1 or mirror CD4 to the harddrive using Alcohol 120% or similar. The latter option is fully legal where as the former will hurt Microsoft and make them raise prices 400% OMG!!111 and stop making teh FS oh no!11 :-lol (j/k)

>No installation headaches unless you have an illegal copy of>FS installed.>>Performance is a bit better, things seem a tad more stable.Errrr....You don

I would also say worth it. For me I had no problems, and maybe a slight gain in performance. The fixes to the other problems are good as well.

Better yet,Use GameJackel. It makes a profile of your game and records the interaction between the software and the cdrom upon startup. That profile is then later replayed, so you won't need to have the CD in the drive anylonger. Images are a few Kb, and your .exe stays 100% intact. Game profiles are not interchangable, so you'll need an original disc to create it the first time and therefore it cannot be used for piracy, but only for convience to the legel owner of the product.

Hi David,Welcome back. And thanks for the BushNet server too. It is much appreciated. :-) :-)I don't use a No cd fs9.exe, so I can't speak of that, but I think the benefits outweigh the risks with regards to the patch. Some say they are squeezing a few frame rates more with the patch, others no. I guess like anything, it all depends on your system.I am now running 3 seperate fs9.exe files so I can have different keyboard assignments for each, and my voice recognition profiles, so I am patched, and still run with the cd in the drive. One of these days I'll run without it, but that's another story. Just Google for what you are looking for with regards to the no cd exe, and you should find it ok.Best of Luck,JoeSonar5JOIN The AVSIM RTW RACE FLIGHT TEAM****************Grab My FREEWARE Voice recognition Profiles here:[a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004misc&DLID=58334]Cessna 172 Voice Profile[/a][a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=fs2004misc&DLID=60740]FSD Avanti Voice Profile[/a].You will need the main FREEWARE Flight Assistant program to use it, get it here:[a href=http://library.avsim.net/esearch.php?CatID=genutils&DLID=39661]Flight Assistant 2.2[/a]

Nothing to do with the original message, but an observation about Alcohol 120% and virtual drives. I had a copy of Alcohol, with virtual HD on my computer and an attempt to install "Myst IV, Revelation" failed. An error box appeared stating in effect that it could not load while the presence of a virtual drive was detected. The solution lay in uninstalling Alcohol 120% and its virtual drive. After some investigating via various discussion groups which spoke directly to this scenario, the consensus was that this was indeed the only work around.I mention this because it's entirely possible that other software is being released with similar copyright and/or anti-pirating abilities including the future version of FS.