After yet another reinstall of Windows 7 and FSX/Acceleration plus all the additions I would like to know the easiest way to do this in the future.

It took me 8 hours the last time, there must be an easier way. I have FSX/A on a dedicated drive so allways save it when I have to reinstall W7.

Any advice on this will be welcome.

Yes, there is an easier method. Since your OS and FS is fresh at the moment, or maybe you have the few necessities that you always need to have in the sim, I would highly recommend you look into a payware utility called 'Acronis True Image'. I've been using it for over 3 years now and have never needed to go back to installing either the sim or the OS again. It creates system images of absolutely anything you tell it to. From just certain files or folders to full hard drives including OS drive and even has the option to store the backup on its own Cloud servers so you always have the option to download it again should the local copy it create get deleted or anything.

 

I made a backup of my OS plus FS with just the necessities installed so I can always go back to a fully working system within an hour (time of course variant depending on the amount of data you have to restore).

ATI is a must! (Acronis True Image)

 

i also move my FSX folder to another separate drive

this allows me to overwrite my C (system drive) any time i wish without losing my addon's

(plus the image is much smaller and faster to deploy when needed,

there are times i don't bother fixing an issue, it takes less time to restore my last image)

 

i do one another thing i didn't hear anyone else is doing; i highly recommend everyone should do the same;

 

as soon as i complete my fresh OS install; i relocate my personal user folder to D drive as well

it is a very simple process to do and take 2 min to complete via simple registry edits;

 

this allow me to restore any ATI image at any time without losing any of my most recent settings!

accept for few programs installed since my last image backup; everything is retained as it was

if i leave a text document on my desktop or added things to any of my profile folder;

they all stays right there; when my backup restore is completed

Thanks Karan and Chris. That is just the sort of advice I was looking for.

Will get 'Acronis True Image' now that every thing is installed and running smoothly.

Strong advice is always to review those 60 gigs of addons  - and NOT reinstall the ones you don't need.

 

I use reinstallation as a major opportunity to dump the `must have` of the time that turned out to be never or rarely used. You will be surprised how much better the sim will run because of it.