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Pete S

Reinstalling Prepar3D plus add-ons?

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My PC equipped with Windows 10 Pro, Intell 32GB Optane and a 2TB drive had P3D v4.3 installed in a separate partition together with a lot of extras. A few days ago my Windows 10 Pro got corrupted and I was forced to do a clean reinstall ofWin 10.

My question is:  P3D was on a separate partition so it's still complete, can I salvage any of that installation, or do I have to reinstall it all again? I guess, if I do, I might as well go for the ver 4.4. and reinstall all of the ORBX and other add-ons and start from scratch. I know it will take a long time to reinstall everything, that's why I'm asking if anything can be salvaged from the previous install. I also had FSX-SE installed there, but I hardly ever use it anymore so I just may take it off.

Would I be better off just wiping everything off the P3D partition or should I attempt to fix/salvage what I can? 

Any ideas or input is appreciated.

Edited by Pete S

Pete S.

10th gen CPU I7-10700K, MSI MPG Z490 Gaming Edge MB, RAM 32GB Corsair Vengeance RGB-DDR4 3600, 

2X 1TB Sabrent Rocket Q M.2 Nvme SSD. Enermax RGB CPU Liquid Cooler.(Still waiting on Evga RTX 3080 Video)

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44 minutes ago, Pete S said:

My PC equipped with Windows 10 Pro, Intell 32GB Optane and a 2TB drive had P3D v4.3 installed in a separate partition together with a lot of extras. A few days ago my Windows 10 Pro got corrupted and I was forced to do a clean reinstall ofWin 10.

My question is:  P3D was on a separate partition so it's still complete, can I salvage any of that installation, or do I have to reinstall it all again? I guess, if I do, I might as well go for the ver 4.4. and reinstall all of the ORBX and other add-ons and start from scratch. I know it will take a long time to reinstall everything, that's why I'm asking if anything can be salvaged from the previous install. I also had FSX-SE installed there, but I hardly ever use it anymore so I just may take it off.

Would I be better off just wiping everything off the P3D partition or should I attempt to fix/salvage what I can? 

Any ideas or input is appreciated.

To save time move your ORBX folder from the main p3d v4 folder.

After you reinstall P3D v4.4, move it back inside the main P3D v4.4 folder. This will save you some downloading & installing your ORBX addons.

Just make sure to delete the docs folder in the ORBX folder. FTX will only download the missing files.


A pilot is always learning and I LOVE to learn.

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I would try to do a complete install of 4.4 right over 4.3 and all your addons. Chances are the FTX Central will pickup the orbx entries. Many of the other addons that did not require any registry entries will work. Those that use the registry entries will need to be reinstalled.

Your other option is as above - save time by saving orbx - wipe everything and reinstall everything.

Vic


 

RIG#1 - 7700K 5.0g ROG X270F 3600 15-15-15 - EVGA RTX 3090 1000W PSU 1- 850G EVO SSD, 2-256G OCZ SSD, 1TB,HAF942-H100 Water W1064Pro
40" 4K Monitor 3840x2160 - AS16, ASCA, GEP3D, UTX, Toposim, ORBX Regions, TrackIR
RIG#2 - 3770K 4.7g Asus Z77 1600 7-8-7 GTX1080ti DH14 850W 2-1TB WD HDD,1tb VRap, Armor+ W10 Pro 2 - HannsG 28" Monitors
 

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Thanks Vic,

The ORBX files are the ones that will take the longest to reinstall, so this may be a choice to consider.

I wish I was better prepared for the crash, but the backup of the Drive C did not get the crash fixed. The Intel Optane was a tricky animal to salvage from crash, and required a complete reinstall of the OS.


Pete S.

10th gen CPU I7-10700K, MSI MPG Z490 Gaming Edge MB, RAM 32GB Corsair Vengeance RGB-DDR4 3600, 

2X 1TB Sabrent Rocket Q M.2 Nvme SSD. Enermax RGB CPU Liquid Cooler.(Still waiting on Evga RTX 3080 Video)

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10 hours ago, vgbaron said:

I would try to do a complete install of 4.4 right over 4.3 and all your addons. Chances are the FTX Central will pickup the orbx entries. Many of the other addons that did not require any registry entries will work. Those that use the registry entries will need to be reinstalled.

Your other option is as above - save time by saving orbx - wipe everything and reinstall everything.

Vic

I can't say that I would recommend trying this method unless you are very familiar--expert, in fact--with P3D add-on structure and operation.  In addition to needing registry data for a good number of add-ons (in addition to P3D itself), there are going to be many missing entries in the add-ons.cfg, scenery.cfg, terrain.cfg etc files that will make many add-ons invisible or dysfunctional unless you know how to manually add them back in and/or configure them.  What is likely to result is a mish-mash of working, partially working, and non-working add-ons that may well be unstable if you don't get the manual additions and ordering right.

If you have a lot of ORBX scenery and a slow internet connection, it might be worth trying to transplant the ORBX scenery over, but even that is not completely straightforward--for example there are a number of elevation correction files in P3D's file structure outside the ORBX folders, and without those specific files, some of their sceneries will be a mess.  If you know what they are, how to find them, etc, then you can make that work, but it's more complex than just copying over a few subdirectories.

My two cents--take this opportunity to do a clean rebuild from the ground up.  And once you're there, get a good, reliable disk imaging program and back up your OS and P3D drives regularly, so this if this ever happens again, you can just restore the entire drive from backup.  Part of my system build process is to install the imaging program just after getting the OS loaded and updated, and then image and restore the OS so that I know how to use the restore feature, and so that i see that it works as advertised.  An imaging program that won't restore a boot drive is as useful as 128GB of write-only memory...

Regards

 


Bob Scott | President and CEO, AVSIM Inc
ATP Gulfstream II-III-IV-V

System1 (P3Dv5/v4): i9-13900KS @ 6.0GHz, water 2x360mm, ASUS Z790 Hero, 32GB GSkill 7800MHz CAS36, ASUS RTX4090
Samsung 55" JS8500 4K TV@30Hz,
3x 2TB WD SN850X 1x 4TB Crucial P3 M.2 NVME SSD, EVGA 1600T2 PSU, 1.2Gbps internet
Fiber link to Yamaha RX-V467 Home Theater Receiver, Polk/Klipsch 6" bookshelf speakers, Polk 12" subwoofer, 12.9" iPad Pro
PFC yoke/throttle quad/pedals with custom Hall sensor retrofit, Thermaltake View 71 case, Stream Deck XL button box

Sys2 (MSFS/XPlane): i9-10900K @ 5.1GHz, 32GB 3600/15, nVidia RTX4090FE, Alienware AW3821DW 38" 21:9 GSync, EVGA 1000P2
Thrustmaster TCA Boeing Yoke, TCA Airbus Sidestick, 2x TCA Airbus Throttle quads, PFC Cirrus Pedals, Coolermaster HAF932 case

Portable Sys3 (P3Dv4/FSX/DCS): i9-9900K @ 5.0 Ghz, Noctua NH-D15, 32GB 3200/16, EVGA RTX3090, Dell S2417DG 24" GSync
Corsair RM850x PSU, TM TCA Officer Pack, Saitek combat pedals, TM Warthog HOTAS, Coolermaster HAF XB case

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Thanks Bob,

 

I think you may be right and I should wipe my LM folder in entirety and do a clean install of P3Dv4.4. As far as Orbx I think I may try to move the folder back into P3D and see what happens. Since my crash only happened recently I think my ORBX stuff is current. 

As far as drive imaging, I had that installed,but for some reason my Acronis backup image could not get the Optane working again in the OS. After calling Intel, and discussing imy problem with them, I decided I would just go ahead and reinstall the Operating System and start clean. I guess by that same logic I should go ahead and start everything else fresh, but there was so much installed and running well that I hate to start all over, since I forgot most of the tricks I used to run my Sims and would have to search for them all over again.  But I have a nasty feeling that it is what I will have to do, anyway.

thanks again.


Pete S.

10th gen CPU I7-10700K, MSI MPG Z490 Gaming Edge MB, RAM 32GB Corsair Vengeance RGB-DDR4 3600, 

2X 1TB Sabrent Rocket Q M.2 Nvme SSD. Enermax RGB CPU Liquid Cooler.(Still waiting on Evga RTX 3080 Video)

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3 hours ago, w6kd said:

My two cents--take this opportunity to do a clean rebuild from the ground up.  And once you're there, get a good, reliable disk imaging program and back up your OS and P3D drives regularly, so this if this ever happens again, you can just restore the entire drive from backup.  Part of my system build process is to install the imaging program just after getting the OS loaded and updated, and then image and restore the OS so that I know how to use the restore feature, and so that i see that it works as advertised.  An imaging program that won't restore a boot drive is as useful as 128GB of write-only memory...

 

I presented an option - this, IMHO is the best way to go.

Vic


 

RIG#1 - 7700K 5.0g ROG X270F 3600 15-15-15 - EVGA RTX 3090 1000W PSU 1- 850G EVO SSD, 2-256G OCZ SSD, 1TB,HAF942-H100 Water W1064Pro
40" 4K Monitor 3840x2160 - AS16, ASCA, GEP3D, UTX, Toposim, ORBX Regions, TrackIR
RIG#2 - 3770K 4.7g Asus Z77 1600 7-8-7 GTX1080ti DH14 850W 2-1TB WD HDD,1tb VRap, Armor+ W10 Pro 2 - HannsG 28" Monitors
 

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34 minutes ago, Pete S said:

I think you may be right and I should wipe my LM folder in entirety and do a clean install of P3Dv4.4. As far as Orbx I think I may try to move the folder back into P3D and see what happens. Since my crash only happened recently I think my ORBX stuff is current.

Seems that about once every couple of years I end up having to rebuild Rome, either due to a new hardware build, or some heinous problem that has crept in undiscovered along the way.  It's probably not all bad...it gets rid of parts and pieces of old add-ons and system upgrades, and lets me rebuild with all current stuff.  To ease the way, I fastidiously keep a log on a spreadsheet of all the installs, mods, and settings (OS and P3D-related), so I can re-create my config fairly quickly without too much reinventing the wheel.  And I keep that log up anytime I install or make a config change on the system or the sim software along the way so I can quickly discern where I was w/r/t version numbers, config options etc.

The ORBX servers are pretty fast, so unless you are on a really slow connection yourself--one that would make re-download just excruciatingly painful, I think it's still a lot more foolproof to just install from scratch, and take the opportunity during the install to have the ORBX installers make a local backup that you can go to later if a reinstall were to become necessary in the future.  It doesn't take a whole lot of fiddling with a misbehaving transplanted batch of scenery before you would find yourself time ahead to have just reinstalled using FTX Central.

I used Acronis for my backup for some years until time finally came to recover from a problem, only to discover that their backup software wouldn't recover the image that their backup software had created.  It still makes me angry years later!  I switched to O&O Diskimage and adopted the practice I described of working through a backup and restore with a minimal OS install to make sure I have a viable solution in place before I spend literally a week of full-time days installing something like 260 add-on airports, a dozen or more add-on planes, and a whole smorgasbord of other add-ons.

Regards

 


Bob Scott | President and CEO, AVSIM Inc
ATP Gulfstream II-III-IV-V

System1 (P3Dv5/v4): i9-13900KS @ 6.0GHz, water 2x360mm, ASUS Z790 Hero, 32GB GSkill 7800MHz CAS36, ASUS RTX4090
Samsung 55" JS8500 4K TV@30Hz,
3x 2TB WD SN850X 1x 4TB Crucial P3 M.2 NVME SSD, EVGA 1600T2 PSU, 1.2Gbps internet
Fiber link to Yamaha RX-V467 Home Theater Receiver, Polk/Klipsch 6" bookshelf speakers, Polk 12" subwoofer, 12.9" iPad Pro
PFC yoke/throttle quad/pedals with custom Hall sensor retrofit, Thermaltake View 71 case, Stream Deck XL button box

Sys2 (MSFS/XPlane): i9-10900K @ 5.1GHz, 32GB 3600/15, nVidia RTX4090FE, Alienware AW3821DW 38" 21:9 GSync, EVGA 1000P2
Thrustmaster TCA Boeing Yoke, TCA Airbus Sidestick, 2x TCA Airbus Throttle quads, PFC Cirrus Pedals, Coolermaster HAF932 case

Portable Sys3 (P3Dv4/FSX/DCS): i9-9900K @ 5.0 Ghz, Noctua NH-D15, 32GB 3200/16, EVGA RTX3090, Dell S2417DG 24" GSync
Corsair RM850x PSU, TM TCA Officer Pack, Saitek combat pedals, TM Warthog HOTAS, Coolermaster HAF XB case

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Thank you Bob,

I think that's wise advice. I wish I would have kept a log like you have. Perhaps I should take this opportunity and start one! 

As far as Acronis, I absolutely agree with you, it is not very reliable I actually quit upgrading my copy so I'm still using an older copy. I had a few opportunities to use it on my other PC , but it was always a hit and miss proposition. I purchased Ashampoo Back Up program because it seemed suited for my wive's PC and she wouldn't have any problems creating a back up of all her sewing programs and such, but I'm not too crazy about it!  I've heard of O&O Diskimage and I have used their Defrag program in the past but with the advent of SSD's defrag programs are becoming obsolete.  I'm glad you mentioned O&O and I think I may check into their Diskimaging program.

Thank again for your sage advice, I'm installing a fresh copy of P3Dv4.4 onto my newly wiped drive as we speak....let the pain begin 😀

 

Edited by Pete S

Pete S.

10th gen CPU I7-10700K, MSI MPG Z490 Gaming Edge MB, RAM 32GB Corsair Vengeance RGB-DDR4 3600, 

2X 1TB Sabrent Rocket Q M.2 Nvme SSD. Enermax RGB CPU Liquid Cooler.(Still waiting on Evga RTX 3080 Video)

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The ORBX servers are pretty fast, so unless you are on a really slow connection yourself--one that would make re-download just excruciatingly painful, I think it's still a lot more foolproof to just install from scratch, 

8 hours ago, w6kd said:

 

The ORBX servers are pretty fast, so unless you are on a really slow connection yourself--one that would make re-download just excruciatingly painful, I think it's still a lot more foolproof to just install from scratch, and take the opportunity during the install to have the ORBX installers make a local backup that you can go to later if a reinstall were to become necessary in the future.  It doesn't take a whole lot of fiddling with a misbehaving transplanted batch of scenery before you would find yourself time ahead to have just reinstalled using FTX Central.

 

 

I'm re-downloading all of my ORBX stuff, my connection is fast, but their servers are not quite as fast as I would like them to be, considering the amount of data I'm downloading. But I have patience and I will survive.......I've got the Global Range files downloaded, the rest are not that big.


Pete S.

10th gen CPU I7-10700K, MSI MPG Z490 Gaming Edge MB, RAM 32GB Corsair Vengeance RGB-DDR4 3600, 

2X 1TB Sabrent Rocket Q M.2 Nvme SSD. Enermax RGB CPU Liquid Cooler.(Still waiting on Evga RTX 3080 Video)

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