Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
MDF86

FSX Reinstall Advice

Recommended Posts

Owing to a recent hardware change, I am taking the opportunity to do a full reinstall of my FSX

 

I have a couple of queries however:

 

- I have around 40 payware airports to install. Is it safe to install these one after the other, or do I need to be restarting my computer and or starting FSX between each one? Obviously in my existing setup they've been accumulated over many years so they were installed 'as and when' before, I've never thought about whether or not it is OK to install them in one session.

 

- I have the NGX and Aerosoft A320 for which I have many add on liveries for. Before I wiped my existing HDD I made backups of the entire Simobjects/Airplanes directory with the intention of installing the aircraft into the new hardware, then just totally replacing the new Simobjects/Airplanes folders in their entirety with the backup ones. Is this safe, or does anyone see any reason why this wouldn't work? It would save me a lot of time in obtaining the liveries and reinstalling them all again.

 

Many thanks

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Install away, but my advice is to only install airports as you us them. No sense in installing what you my not need.

 

You may wish to keep in mind your VAS usage and how it's affected by flying over detailed scenery (potential for OOMs).

 

Hope this has been helpful.


Dave Hodges

 

System Specs:  I9-13900KF, NVIDIA 4070TI, Quest 3, Multiple Displays, Lots of TERRIFIC friends, 3 cats, and a wonderfully stubborn wife.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thanks Dave, I was planning to get everything I plan on using installed and then use scenery config editor each time I fly to only enable my departure and destination airports.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I strongly suggest you take a disk image backup before you do any major instal on your new FSX base. If you do that, then at least you can go back and re-instal the airports/aircraft separately if you find problems.

 

If the scenery for an airport is entirely contained within one folder, then just restoring that folder from backup will work. I do that for most of my airports. You will still need to re-add the scenery to your scenery library of course. However, some airport scenery places files elsewhere, so best to re-instal those. Some even change/update base files that they probably shouldn't. If in doubt, re-instal.

 

Much the same is true of addon aircraft. Some place all their files within Simobjects/Airplanes, but others put files (e.g. sound, effects) in other folders. Some even insist on those files being placed there.

 

So unless you are absolutely certain that you know where all the files are for an addon, then best advice is to re-instal.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You can't just copy-paste your simobject folder, largely because of copy protection. You'd be best off installing things the old fashioned way. You could *possibly* install your addon planes the normal way, then copy over the simobjects folder. It might work, or it might not. Make sure that you take a backup of your simobjects folder before you start overwriting it with your old version, just in case you need to restore it


vatsim s3

1133704.png

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You can certainly copy-paste the airplanes subfolder - I've done that many times. I've also restored the whole simobjects folder from backup. But I agree the safest way is to re-instal addons.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thanks guys - just to confirm, my plan with the Airplanes (PMDG NGX and Aerosoft Airbus) was to reinstall them into the new PC using the normal installer but then essentially just copy the old texture.xxxxx subfolders along with the aircraft.cfg files from my old setup, so I didn't have to install 100+ liveries again manually!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

That should work. Provided you don't fall foul of UAC copy protection as mentioned by wims80 above.

 

Good luck !

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thanks all.

 

As I'm starting afresh with my first clean FSX installation in years, I'm going to get into the habit of doing an image backup of my "vanilla" FSX and then creating a new image before I install any additional produts, and then going forward each time I add a new product, I will take a new image and so on.

 

Does anyone know a good freeware program that will cater to my needs?

 

I don't need anything fancy, and I note that the Payware offerings such as Acronis have a myriad of options that I will probably never use. I just want something that I can create a foolproof "restore point" each time I install an add on, so that I can quickly and painlessly get back to the last known good working state.

 

Many thanks

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

To back up my FSX recently I copy & pasted the whole thing to another drive, installed a new SSD and copy & paste it all back again in one go, everything works just fine and I am left with a good back up !

 

I've tried imaging, cloning etc etc, never works well for me, copy & paste, been doing it for years, never fails me.

 

As Dick B says, some add ons scatter files so copy & paste SIMOBJECTS, EFFECTS. GAUGES, SOUNDS etc to capture everything.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Well, I guess there may be freeware backup solutions, but I have to say that I use Acronis regularly and swear by it. You can restore a whole computer or partition, including all the hidden files you never knew about or thought would have been changed. Or you can restore individual folders or files. It's saved my bacon at least a half dozen times.

 

The other thing I highly recommend is to keep a detailed record of any change, large or small that you make to your FSX system, as well as any problems that occur. It takes discipline, but once again it can be invaluable in helping you figure out what change caused a new problem you may be seeing. Just recently this process, together with my Acronis backups allowed me to find and fix an extremely weird and very un-obvious bug which was causing CTDs in an apparently unrelated area.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

  • Tom Allensworth,
    Founder of AVSIM Online


  • Flight Simulation's Premier Resource!

    AVSIM is a free service to the flight simulation community. AVSIM is staffed completely by volunteers and all funds donated to AVSIM go directly back to supporting the community. Your donation here helps to pay our bandwidth costs, emergency funding, and other general costs that crop up from time to time. Thank you for your support!

    Click here for more information and to see all donations year to date.
×
×
  • Create New...