A friend of mine has a strange problem. He recently bought FSX Gold Edition and wanted to shift his previous Standard Edition to his Notebook (it's quite powerful). However, he ran in severe problems:

 

He first de-installed the old FSX and then tried to run the new package. Just at the beginning the installer refuses to go on and submitted the message, that he cannot upgrade his Standard Edition with the Gold Edition and he should de-install first FSX, what he has done already. Both packages are in German and thus I cannot provide the related exact error message.

 

His attempt to re-install the previous version failed as well and nothing works even after cleaning all visible folders (yes all!). When he looked into the registry, he told me that he doesn't feel too motivated to clean up (as he felt) about 200 entries containing traces of FSX. He is working in the IT business and usually knows what he is doing.

 

Has anybody a simple idea what is going on there and where to look at? Please help!

Hi,  I just installed the Gold  over the old FSX....it just updated it.....................works fine.

Did he uninstall any service packs prior to uninstalling FSX? If not he may need to reinstall Standard+ SPs and start over uninstalling the SPs first in the reverse order they were installed.

 

Did he delete the program generated folders:

 

%appdata%\Microsoft\FSX

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\FSX

%programdata%\Microsoft\FSX

%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Flight Simulator X Files

 

 

I believe the registry key that matters (on 64 bit OS) is:

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\microsoft games\flight simulator\10.0

 

 

on 32 bit OS it's:

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\microsoft games\flight simulator\10.0

 

 

If he had the SDK installed he may as well uninstall that too since he'll need to reinstall it from the FSX gold disks in the end anyway. There are also some registry keys for the SDK,

 

64 bit OS: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\microsoft games\Flight Simulator X SDK

 

32 bit OS: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\microsoft games\Flight Simulator X SDK

 

 

Some things to try anyway before the complete nuke & pave...

Jim

Did he uninstall any service packs prior to uninstalling FSX? If not he may need to reinstall Standard+ SPs and start over uninstalling the SPs first in the reverse order they were installed.

 

Did he delete the program generated folders:

 

%appdata%\Microsoft\FSX

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\FSX

%programdata%\Microsoft\FSX

%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Flight Simulator X Files

 

 

I believe the registry key that matters (on 64 bit OS) is:

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\microsoft games\flight simulator\10.0

 

 

on 32 bit OS it's:

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\microsoft games\flight simulator\10.0

 

 

If he had the SDK installed he may as well uninstall that too since he'll need to reinstall it from the FSX gold disks in the end anyway. There are also some registry keys for the SDK,

 

64 bit OS: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\microsoft games\Flight Simulator X SDK

 

32 bit OS: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\microsoft games\Flight Simulator X SDK

 

 

Some things to try anyway before the complete nuke & pave...

Jim

 

Jim, nice to meet you again...

 

He wrote in his mail that he deleted the mentioned entries. However, "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\FSX" might not be in every (even long time) user's mind. I'll copy your complete post into my next mail to him.

 

One part of the problem is that both versions don't work now. I even got the feeling that the related MS Installer could be corrupt.

 

As he struggled a while with the stability of his Standard version, too, he resisted to add any extra software and there is no interest in the SDK or other tools from his side. I'm not sure, but I think it has never been on his machine. Probably his brand new 6-kernel AMD CPU and the related MoBo did need some driver updates in between....

 

I think I already suggested to look for those registry entries. Nevertheless, I'm wondering what else might be therein as he wrote about is feeling that he found about 200 entries (actually, I believe there are not as much). He did not install any bird he owns (the PMDG NGX or the AS DHC6), just some airport corrections I did for our common flights and that's uncritical and proven stuff.

 

Thanks for your thoughts, I'll pass them forward.

 

 

Some things to try anyway before the complete nuke & pave...

 

Jim, actually I owe you an answer. My buddy flattened the whole system as no other solution worked for him and now it seems to behave as normal as a Window based OS is able to do.

 

Thanks, and have a wonderful new year!