Just wondering what people do when an update for  P3D comes  like going from 2.4 to 2.5?  Is it a patch that updates the existing installation or is one required to start all over again, and if so what happens to all the add ons like scenery, aircraft, etc when you install a newer version?  

Version updates 2.4-2.5 notwithstanding) can usually be left in-situ and simply installed over the top. However some changes (such as that between 2.4 and 2.5) required a full de-installation and reinstallation. If you have scenery in the addon scenery folder, this will NOT be deleted by the uninstall routine, so you can keep those. Scenery textures (such as FTX Global) will need to be re-activated. Other addons are entirely dependent on how they `hook` into the sim - any dll mods will usually need a reinstall of the addon.

 

L-M have not said what the next version (2.6?) will need, but 2.4-2.5 was a sea change to bring file locations back into alignment with MS, so hopefully if you have 2.5 installed, 2.6 will just be a patch executable.

 

Rather than see it as a negative, I use it as the opportunity to dump old cr@p I thought would be indispensable, only to find that it got forgotten after fifteen minutes. All gardens look prettier after weeding. 

*Sometimes* there were patches which in *some* cases worked for *some* people. *Sometimes* you need *some* time though, to discover *someting* during patching went South.

 

Otherwise it's a complete re-install.This is probably not an issue if you are an experienced full-time computer expert with, say, ~20 addons. It is an issue, though, if you own the complete ORBX collection + a number of FSDT, Aerosoft, FT and some more airports and a hand full of add-on planes and your main interest is not in installing but in flying and you have a full-time job already exhausting you. And, no, you can't do any serious work besides if you are asked for an "Enter", "Select", or "Confirm" every other minute. Add the little modifications (which .bgl was to be de-activated to get rid of the fence over the runway at XXXX?) and settings you got right but forgot over time.

 

That's the bitter truth for now. Unfortunately I belong to the second group. I am still in the process of trying to allocate a time slot now and then to complete my 2.5 installation.

 

IMO, LM should have changed this long ago. Nearly ANY other program (including FSX:SE and X-Plane) does this automagically today. That's nothing fancy but state of the art.

 

Kind regards, Michael