Over the years you don't know how much stuff you have installed until you have a computer crash and have to start over from scratch.I have done this before, but not since sometime well before FS9, and it wasn't like this. Accumulation is unbelievable (to say nothing of reinstallation!) On top of that, trying to remember where everything is like keys, sources, procedures and methods is a challange as well. Frankly, my first reaction was just about panic. I checked my backup CD's and DVD's and how time passes. The latest were almost a year old. I had nothing for my Dreamfleet Baron, PSS 777's, my free 5th BirdsEyeView Spring, and a few other items and feared that much was totally lost unless I purchased again.My COMPLEMENTS TO THE MSFS COMMUNITY for the way things have become. There are many unfavorable posts regarding vendors and their procedures, but in mass they saved my bacon and I appreciate their efforts to no end. It may be somewhat of a hassle, but IMHO we have come a long way in the area of insurance, service, and aid from the major suppliers.With Flight1, all I had to have was the email address and the last four numbers of my credit card to retrieve my order numbers and key codes for everything I have downloaded through them (Ultimate Terrain, BirdsEyeView, Citation X, LD767, Dreamfleet Baron, Aerowax KingAir, USA Roads, Dreamfleet 727 etc. etc.)With FSGenesis and PSS everything was still available simply by accessing,logging on and looking at member accounts and Product Downloads.I had to get key renewals for some of FSD's and other sources, but that was automatic in only seconds.Thus far I have reinstalled 79 items (Some were multiples) and it looks like just about everything critical is back in order. I still have quite a few utilities along with third party airport scenery to go, but thanks to the kind efforts of so many, everything is back just about in order. Some items like the good old Iron Knucles DC9, DF Cardinal, and Coranodo V35 Bonanza were thankfully on CD's.The first chapter of my disaster began with a cleanup of FS9. I have a large quantity of aircraft and have used the fleet provisions of FlightSim Manager to arrange them for quite some time. I decided to take advantage of the Hanger provisions and began to move long unused birds to that end. Everything went swimingly through two or three dozen planes until I got to an F-14. For some reason the process continued to start over and over without ever completely putting the plane into the hanger, and I could not stop it even with the Windows Task Manager. Here I made the mistake of choosing to do a hot reboot. Frankly, this old mind has forgotten some of the details at this point as this has been a week long to ten day process or so, but I could not get windows XP to come up again. I am not trying to put the blame on FSMgr in any way, but this is what happened. When and if I get brave enough to use those provisions again, I will probably avoid the hanger routine. I put everything in fleets and it worked perfectly for months if not probably years now.I opted for a reformat and clean installation of everything since in what has become probably three or four years.The second disaster occured during reinstallation of BirdsEyeView. I successfully reinstalled ten of twelve products with the Flight1 Wrapper, including Summer and Fall from BirdsEyeView. I got the old Send Report/Don't Send Report MS window for Winter. Hard Winter downloaded and processed ok, but gave me an unknown error message at the end suggesting that I could check the download and see if it would install anyway. After multiple download tries I gave what I had a try for installation. I never could get FS9 to start again, even in going back to all of the default backup files and folders that I always make immediately after installation. I tried to uninstall FS9 from the MSXP add removal provisions, and it told me I was removing the Eaglesoft Citation X. Assuming Registry was screwed up way beyond my capability to straighten it out, I opted to start over.Back to a second reformat and totally clean installation.When I got back to BirdsEye, I still had the same problems, so avoided Winter and Hard Winter, and contacted both Flight1 and Birdseye.BirdsEyeView immediately gave me direct downloads plus three or four helpful emails for new installation procedures. Flight1 also offered their help.A few suggestions for anybody else that may face this monster (and we all do from time to time). If you haven't, YOU WILL! (Kind of like the old cliche for retractable pilots)I back up default files and folders both on backup harddrives and DVD's. (Have a bunch of older backups on CD's going back to FS2000). Although they were not the solution this time, over the years they have been a lifesaver. In the past they have been individual (i.e. Scenery, Texture, Addon etc.etc. folders. Scenery.cfg, fs9.exe, display.cfg, devices.cfg etc.etc.). I also backup up my fs9.cfg file along with what ever else I could think of. This time I took the shorter, but more complete route. Immediately after installation, I backed up Microsoft Games entirely as the original folder. I also backup up FS9 in the C:Documents and SettingsMy Computer NameApplication DataMicrosoftFS9 Folder. In addition I backup the My DocumentsFight Simulator Files.After you start adding third party things always keep whatever is FS9 related in the C: root directory, or program files folder in mind. For example I implement Maps for the CH Products (Yoke/Footpedals) and completely overlooked that the applicable CH and Map folders are located under program files. Fortunately, about a three year old backup up CD save the day there.Forgive such a lengthy dialog, but I thought this might be of help to somebody somewhere. BE SURE YOU SAVE ALL ORDER NOs. PROOF OF PURCHASES, KEYS etc. and DO NOT procrastinate as I have been foolish enough to do.Again, my sincere thanks to Steve Halpern at Flight1, Stephen and Paul at BirdsEyeView and all the rest that make this community the benchmark of quality IMHO.RTH1585368CFI

Well said! Kudos to you for saying it and to the vendors for taking good care of you.KP

>My COMPLEMENTS TO THE MSFS COMMUNITY for the way things have>become. There are many unfavorable posts regarding vendors and>their procedures, but in mass they saved my bacon and I>appreciate their efforts to no end. It may be somewhat of a>hassle, but IMHO we have come a long way in the area of>insurance, service, and aid from the major suppliers.I cant agree more. I have made my opinion on this subject clear in many forum threads. If you just use the software for yourself and are reasonable with them they will be the same in return. When I look at the anonymous accusations you are referring to and the ill-tempered trolls that always seem to come out of the woodwork to have a bash-fest on those occasions I cant help but be sceptical about the claims of rip-off and unfair treatment. Particulrly when I have experience myself with almost every payware add-on company and have never experienced any of these problems. But I have never sent these companies some of the bone-chilling messages like you see on the forums.Out of all of the forums I think Avsim does the best job of cleaning this unwanted noise out. Thats one reason why I really only hang around here anymore.

Thanks for the reply Charles:In note of your closure "Hey y'all, watch this"! I thought you might be amused by a true story in that vein that took place more years ago than I will tell.Used to be a fire control tech. (Radar to fire weapons) on F-102A's. While doing maitenance on a plane which was perpetual during those days, two techs. were working, one on the ground in an equipment compartment and the other sitting in the cockpit. As was often the case when watching the screen in the cockpit, we would tune into the control tower on the radio and listen to landing aircraft communication as this tech in question did. The tech. on the ground could plug a headset into a jack in the nosewheel well and communicate with the party in the cockpit. Having problems finding the malfunction, the two decided to go get a cup of coffee. The tech sitting in the cockpit conveyed this decision by saying, "This bird is all xxxxed up. Let's get out of here." Unfortunately, he made the mistake of keying the mike key on the yoke and the tower also picked up his statement. All #### broke loose until AP's finally found out where the unorthodox mayday call originated. (No, thank God I was not the tech.)Happy flying:RTH1585368CFI

:-lol

Nice to know that the above developers provide such good custumer service. I hope they read this too so they know this kind of service is appreciated and will bring them many returning custumers. I had my hard drive fail 6 months ago too, luckily I had everything backed up and was building a new system anyway. It still took me over a month to install everything I had on my old setup to my new machine. Back then most of what I had then were freeware add ons. If it happened now with all the payware I have things would be more complicated.

Thanks to the process from some of the vendors, I am thrilled to say you might be surprised.As I said in my original post, after my panic it was much easier to recover the payware routine than I ever imagined. I want completely say it was a piece of cake, but was far better than I ever expected and quite available for anybody who puts forth any effort at all. Something somewhere may be missing, but I am at the stage I don't know what it is right now, & may be better off without it anyway.You didn't say to what you upgraded, and how pleased you are with it????Happy flying:RTH

Big upgrade although the upgrade process never ends. My old system which I flew for like 4 years (including FS2002):HP Pavilion 7855 Pentium III 1.1ghz 512 Megs of ram, Radeon 9250 Pci graphics. Performance was acceptable with most sliders well too the left and freeware aircraft.Bad performance with complex payware aircraft,detailed scenery,weather, or anything over 10% Ai traffic. New system I built myself AMD Athlon 64 3700+,Asus A8n Sli deluxe mobo, 2 Gigs memory, Leadtek Geforce 6600 256mb Pci express video card, 2 Maxtor hard drives Ata133 (120 and 300gig),Ultra 500 watt power supply,Thermaltake Tsunami case, Two Samsung 19 inch panels in span mode 2560 X 1024 resolution. Performance: Now I can fly anything from the virtual cockpit even PMDG747 with frames in the low to mid 20s in most detailed sceneries(exept Simflyers Orlando,drops to 8 fps)with 60 % Ai traffic (My Traffic 2004) with most sliders far to the right. System still struggles with 3d cumulous clouds and weather especially when flying through them(drops to like 14fps when flying through or near big cumulus clouds), probably because of the high res. Maybe need to upgrade graphics card. Overall looks and performs fantastic, of course with FS9 theres always room for improvement. With 2 monitors everything looks so much bigger,don't see myself ever going back to one unless it is a 30".I do give up some performance with this setup. If I run only 1 Monitor 1280 X 1024 my frames are like 50 to 70 and high 20's and 30's in payware virtual cockpits. I am satisfied for now but Fs10 looms on the horizon and I will upgrade or build a whole new system for that when it arrives.