fsx-ms Dovetail publicity lets my FSX crash

[ErnstB 13]

Hi,

My FSX Gold was running now for years.
All of a sudden I get extremely annoying publicity on my start-up screen from Dovetail Games, FSX Steam, PC-Pilot etc.

My standard Start-up situation are not selectable any more, the menues are covered with publicity.
Selecting a free flight or a mission etc let my FSX Crash.
What worked for years has been messed up!

Dovetail hacked my FSX and doesn't leave me an option!
I considered to switch to FSX SE after my vacation.
I doubt I will consider a product from a such imposing company.

This publicity made my FSX useless!

How can I get rid of this publicity?

Thanks for any help

Ernst
 

[Jcannon 13]

I highly doubt that Dovetail hacked your pc, You could liken it to Microsoft 'hacking' you because there is a windows 10 icon on your task manager.

 

You have obviously installed something which you shouldn't have.

 

No one will know how to get rid of it because you're post doesnt contain enough infomation. Have you tried asking Dovetail? If you put a tinfoil hat on whilst you contact DT they won't be able to read your mind.

[Pete Dowson 558]

My FSX Gold was running now for years.

All of a sudden I get extremely annoying publicity on my start-up screen from Dovetail Games, FSX Steam, PC-Pilot etc.

 

My standard Start-up situation are not selectable any more, the menues are covered with publicity.

Selecting a free flight or a mission etc let my FSX Crash.

What worked for years has been messed up!

 

There is absolutely no way DoveTail or Steam can or will change anything in your FSX installation. It sounds like you have tried to download FSX-SE then aborted it and are now trying to start an incompletely installed FSX-SE and not your untouched FSX installation. Check the folders on your disk and look for your FSX-MS installation, and start FSX from the FSX.EXE found there.

 

If you run the FSUIPC4 installer (latest, 4.939t) and show me the Install Log file which is generated, I might be able to tell you pretty much what is wrong.

 

Pete

[Lewis B 14]

All DG do is now own fsxinsider so on the start screen on FSX the embedded fsxinsider website now displays what dovetail put on the site, so it'll be all updated news, hints tips and heads up on my DLC.

 

Saying this is going to cause the issues you have described is akin to blaming the furry dice hanging from your rear view mirror for your tire blowing on the M6.

[JimmiG 244]

All DG do is now own fsxinsider so on the start screen on FSX the embedded fsxinsider website now displays what dovetail put on the site, so it'll be all updated news, hints tips and heads up on my DLC.

 

Saying this is going to cause the issues you have described is akin to blaming the furry dice hanging from your rear view mirror for your tire blowing on the M6.

 

Since FSX uses an embedded instance of Internet Explorer to view the FSInsider website, it's possible some malicious plug-in for IE might cause popups and such in FSX I suppose.

 

Obviously Dovetail Games don't go around hacking people's PC's and installing adware. That would be absurd.

[stans 702]

Since FSX uses an embedded instance of Internet Explorer to view the FSInsider website, it's possible some malicious plug-in for IE might cause popups and such in FSX I suppose.

 

Obviously Dovetail Games don't go around hacking people's PC's and installing adware. That would be absurd.

This is the most likely answer.  Malicious code (Adware) added to IE.

[Lewis B 14]

If malware on the fsxinsider website was the cause then i'm sure there'd be more than one person reporting it amongst the hundreds of thousands with the sim installed though

[guidos 2]

OP post is right. In Dovetails latest build: None Steam FSX is re-directed to Dovetails server when checking in registry if FSX is activated and then tries to find Steam FSX. If not present on your PC it forces you to download Dovetail FSX. It also prevents FSX.exe to open again in the future as it puts some sort of lock on. Therefore rendering none steam FSX useless. You need to purchase Dovetails FSX in order to fix this issue.

 

I made that up...... 

[ErnstB 13]

Hi All,
Thanks for all the speedy replies!
I may not have understood all the slang comments since my native language isn't English.
Sorry for possibly using too hard or even false wording, but this upsets me and I spent hours in trying to get rid of this problem.
I am a long time user, even somehow advanced, but not a real expert.
To me it looks "hacked".

My replies to some comments:
I am running fsx Gold on W7 Professional 64 bits, last MS updates 12.6.2015
W7 and FSX are German language versions.
Problem started 2 days ago.
I have never attempted to download FSX SE and was never close to any such page, just informing myself in the avsim forum.

Lewis is right: it's fsxinsider which runs this page. So is this sort of IE overlay to the FSX start-up menue ? (I never use IE but Firefox exclusively).
FSX started without internet connection shows fsinsider (not fsxinsider) start-up information.
This is exactly what I get on my start-up screen:    

          https://www.microsoft.com/games/fsinsider/

I don't remember having ever been on their page before.

To Pete:
Direct start of fsx.exe doesn't improve anything.

Install Log latest Fsuipc:

"Installer for FSUIPC4.DLL version 4.939t


Looking in registry for FSX install path:
     HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator\10.0
     Parameter"SetupPath"
... >>>  OK! FOUND FSX!  <<< ...
     SetupPath=E:\FSX\

Looking in registry for FSX-SE install path:
     HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator - Steam Edition\10.0
     Parameter"SetupPath"
Not there, so looking in:
     HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator - Steam Edition\10.0
     Parameter"AppPath"
... NOT found! ...

Looking in registry for Prepar3D v1 install path:
     HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\LockheedMartin\Prepar3D
     Parameter"SetupPath"
Not there, so looking in:
     HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\LockheedMartin\Prepar3D
     Parameter"AppPath"
... NOT found! ...

Looking in registry for Prepar3D v2 install path:
     HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v2
     Parameter"SetupPath"
Not there, so looking in:
     HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v2
     Parameter"AppPath"
... NOT found! ...
===========================================================

INSTALLATION FOR FSX:
SetupPath="E:\FSX\"
Checking version of the FSX EXE:
... Version 10.0.61637.0  (Need at least 10.0.60905.0)
Checking compatibility with installed SimConnect:
    Found SimConnect build 60905 (Original)
    Found SimConnect build 61242 (SP1 May07)
    Found SimConnect build 61259 (Acc/SP2 Oct07)
Checking if there's already a version of FSUIPC4 installed in:
       E:\FSX\Modules\FSUIPC4.DLL
... Version 4.939 found.
FSX Modules folder already exists.
Okay -- installed FSUIPC4 into "E:\FSX\Modules\FSUIPC4.DLL"
Looking for the current user's Application Data path:
... found as "C:\Users\Ernst\AppData\Roaming"
Now finding \Microsoft\FSX\FSX.CFG for all users, including this one
Looking in "C:\Users\All Users\AppData\Roaming"
 ... No FSX.CFG there
Looking in "C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming"
 ... No FSX.CFG there
Looking in "C:\Users\Default User\AppData\Roaming"
 ... No FSX.CFG there
Looking in "C:\Users\Ernst\AppData\Roaming"
Found FSX.CFG in "C:\Users\Ernst\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX\FSX.CFG"
Now checking DLL.XML ...
... There is a previous DLL.XML, checking for FSUIPC4 section.
... FSUIPC4 section already exists but will be replaced.
     (for FSUIPC4, without Loader)
... FSUIPC4 section of DLL.XML written okay
Now checking for a SimConnect.XML file ...
... No SimConnect.XML file found. This is okay.
Looking in "C:\Users\Public\AppData\Roaming"
 ... No FSX.CFG there
"Modules\FSUIPC Documents" folder already exists.
Now installing additional files into the "Modules\FSUIPC Documents" folder:
   Installed "FSUIPC4 User Guide.pdf" okay
   Installed "FSUIPC4 for Advanced Users.pdf" okay
   Installed "FSUIPC4 History.pdf" okay
   Installed "List of FSX and P3D controls.pdf" okay
   Installed "FSUIPC Lua Library.pdf" okay
   Installed "FSUIPC Lua Plug-Ins.pdf" okay
   Installed "Lua License.pdf" okay
   Installed "Lua Plugins for VRInsight Devices.pdf" okay
   Installed "LuaFileSystem.pdf" okay
   Installed "Example LUA plugins.zip" okay
   Installed "ASN WX Radar facilities in FSUIPC4.pdf" okay
   Installed "Offset Mapping for PMDG 737NGX.pdf" okay
   Installed "FSUIPC4 Offsets Status.pdf" okay
   Installed "Profiles in Separate Files.pdf" okay
===========================================================

All installer tasks completed.
Registration for FSUIPC4 was successful! (result code 00)

*************** End of Install Log ***************
"

Thanks in advance for helping me!

Best regards
Ernst

[aarque 11]

I think it would be helpful to see the exe.xml and dll.xml documents to see what executables and modules are being started. I don't notice any anomalies in the FSUIPC report, but Pete is definitely your expert here.

[Pete Dowson 558]

Lewis is right: it's fsxinsider which runs this page. So is this sort of IE overlay to the FSX start-up menue ? (I never use IE but Firefox exclusively).

FSX started without internet connection shows fsinsider (not fsxinsider) start-up information.

This is exactly what I get on my start-up screen:    

          https://www.microsoft.com/games/fsinsider/

I don't remember having ever been on their page before.

 

Strange. My FSX-MS starts up with the usual free flight selection menu. Sorry, I've no idea how that can get spontaneously changed.

 

Log looks okay.  So I too would be rather bewildered. Sorry.

 

Pete

[wanabflyer 53]

Might sound too simple, but have you tried disconnecting from your internet, run a scan with (for instance) Malwarebytes and removing whatever it finds, then reconnecting?

[mgh 89]

This is exactly what I get on my start-up screen:

 

https://www.microsof...ames/fsinsider/

 

I don't remember having ever been on their page before.

 

That's exactly what we've all got for months.

[JSkorna 137]

Rick,

 

All of this is normal behavior. There is no malware, spyware, adware, under-ware, software, shareware, payware, outer-ware, or any other type of ware out there that is causing this. It is the real, legitimate, official, safe, secure, home page for FSX that the user is seeing. There are no attacks being sent, no hackers are breaking into systems, no credit card information is being stolen, no key gens are recording his every move, just all normal behavior.

[n4gix 4,947]

Make sure you have your FSX configured properly so that it opens on the Free Flight Menu: