FSX-SE Using FSX (not steam) on a machine with Steam installed - possible?

[SledDriver 39]

Over many years, like many here I have built up a very good FSX+addons setup which I am very happy with.

I have never used FSX Steam Edition.

Recently I installed another Steam game on my system for the first time (no Steam architecture had been near the machine previously).

To my horror, after letting a steam app install on my machine, FSX normal edition would not start up, citing an invalid license. WIth my FSX install running to almost 300GB, plus many, many tweaks, I feared the worst.

Eventually after much research I found that if I uninstalled SP2 and reinstalled it, I was given the opportunity to relicense FSX normal edition. So I got out of that hole. I also immediately wiped any reference of Steam from that machine.

Now, I have reasons to want to install Steam on this machine so I can put some other games on it. I have no interest in FSX-SE as my limited understanding of it is that SE is not compatible with all my addons - is this likely to be true?

Finally, is there a documented way to install Steam on a PC without it hijacking my FSX normal install and ruining the FSX license registration?

Life would be perfect if only I could have Steam installed, and tell it never, ever to touch my FSX installation.

Please tell me it is so...

Cheers.

[Zatoichi 45]

I have Steam and the disc version of FSX with no issues.

A lot of the FSX add-ons will work with Steam but it's not 100%. 

The box install goes to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X

Steam apps are kept in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common unless you redirect.

[SledDriver 39]

Interesting. I'll have to try it again and see if I can make them work.

I wonder if Steam is getting confused because my FSX is in c:\fsx. If it has a blacklist of apps not to touch that might be confusing it.

Regards.

[vortex681 806]

I'm a little confused (happens a lot recently!). Do you have FSX Steam Edition installed on your system? If not, just having the Steam ecosystem installed for other games will have no effect on your boxed edition of FSX.

With regards to FSX:SE compatibility, although there are reportedly some problems with older add-ons, they are very rare. I use FSX:SE with many add-ons (A2A, RealAir, Milviz, REX4, Orbx, Active Sky, FS Force and various pieces of freeware to name but a few) and have yet to have a single problem. Although the Steam Edition can be installed alongside the boxed edition, you can run into a few problems by having them both at the same time. If you do decide to go for FSX:SE (highly recommended), you need to make sure that all traces of the boxed edition are removed (and not just by using the uninstall option) before you install it. 

[AOB 78]

I have boxed FSX installed and steam FSW so I can use path statements in FSW scenery.cfg that point to some FSX scenery. That mostly works fine. If I bought FSXSE then I can see all sorts of problems coming up with those .cfg files. 

[G-RFRY 1,712]

In steam click on the steam top left then settings\interface uncheck the box run on PC startup then click OK , when you run FSX steam will not be running.

[Zatoichi 45]

I ended up switching to SE and every add-on I have:

A2A Aircraft
Accusim
GTX
UTX
GTN Complete
REX HD Airports
AS 2016
ASCA

all work just fine. Yeah, it took some work, the many details of installation and tweaking.that I had forgotten.

Whew

But they DO work.