Everyone who is having activation problems please try this. You can do this two ways. The first way is to just try the instuctions I have included, then type you key in the activation window. The second way involves going to your main FSX folder and opening the file called "dlxkey.txt" without qoutes. I am not sure what this file would be called for the standard edition, i'm sure something along the lines of "stdkey.txt". Once you find this file, delete the text in it and type your product key in here exactly as it's written in your CD box. (BTW, this is the way I did it.) save the file then close your windows explorer. Follow these instructions:Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.To resolve this issue, follow these steps:1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then OK.2. Expand the following registry key:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCURRENTCONTROLSETCONTROLCLASS{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}3. After you find the folder, double-click Upperfilters on the right side.4. Change the value from 0 to PartMgr, and then click OK.5. Close Registry Editor,reboot your computer and then try to use the activation wizard.For those of you that don't know, BACK UP YOUR REGISTRY !!!!! I can't stress this enough. Also, When you open the upperfilters key the value will be empty, just type in this space the "PartMgr" without qoutes.This worked for me. The only problem is though, you won't know if it worked unless you run the sim for more then 30mins. There is nothing telling you that it registered.Hope this works for everyone. Let me know as I have one more fix, but this should do it.Danp.s. Thanks to all those who posted in the last thread about this. United we will always win :)

Dan, you are da man!Actually these are the same steps I was sent from Microsoft, except he left out step 5 - reboot! I should have known that the edits would not take effect until after a reboot, but I tried it right after the edit, it didn't work, so I blew the whole thing off.After reading your post I thought OOPS! Didn't try after rebooting - so I just tried the activation wizard again and got the "Acitvation Successful" message!If you hadn't posted this I would have just sat here for quite awhile without trying it again.Thanks!john

No problem brother, glad I could help. The funny this is that after I found this and had just activated it, finally called back after 3 days. LOLDan

It's just a shame that this is happening in the first place. Great work solving this issue. Hopefully it will solve everyone else's problems.

Astrodave, you have no idea(or maybe you do LOL) what I went through the last 7 days with this "Greatest flightsim MS has done this far, Thank you MS we love you, your the best, Bill G let me slob your knob" (you know who you are) to just be able to use it for more then 30mins. Now let's see what other problems lie around the corner that we end users can fix for them. I can think of one already that has to do with FSUIPC. Dan

Same here, got your e-mail, overlooked the instruction to reboot, and it didn't work. The instructions I got from Microsoft didn't say to reboot either. My Upperfilters contained "snapman" instead of being blank. After rebooting (it actually asked me to reboot again when it booted) I was able to activate.Thanks,Bruce

>I can think of one already that has to do with FSUIPC. Dan, neither MS nor ACES has anything at all to do with FSUIPC. If you have a problem with FSUIPC, you need to visit Pete Dowson's forum at http://flightsim.com... ;)

Thanks. I do know this, but it's a new way that it uses simconnect to register it's code and it's having a problem with joystick functions. I wasn't picking on FSUIPC directly, I was just using it as an example as to just one more hurdle we will have to jump to get things to work in FSX. That's all i was saying :).Dan

You can tell if you are activated or not by the presence of the multiplayer option on the left hand side of the shell. If multiplayer is missing, you are not activated. If it's there, you are. Quicker than flying and waiting 30 minutes. :)Adding your product key to the dlxkey.txt or stdkey.txt files causes FSX to automatically activate using that key without user interaction. Useful for automated FSX installs. I wouldn't expect it to change anything if you were already having problems activating, though.I'm not 100% sure about that PartMgr registry key. There is a bug in driver for some removeable disk drives (one of them is the iomega I believe) that breaks activation, and this registry key appears to be related to disk drives so it might have something to do with that. I don't know what other effects changing this would have, though, so it seems a bit dangerous. I will try to look into what this is doing.

>Everyone who is having activation problems please try this.>You can do this two ways. The first way is to just try the>instuctions I have included, then type you key in the>activation window. The second way involves going to your main>FSX folder and opening the file called "dlxkey.txt" without>qoutes. I am not sure what this file would be called for the>standard edition, i'm sure something along the lines of>"stdkey.txt". Once you find this file, delete the text in it>and type your product key in here exactly as it's written in>your CD box. (BTW, this is the way I did it.) save the file>then close your windows explorer. Follow these instructions:>>Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the>registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using>another method. These problems might require that you>reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee>that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your>own risk.To resolve this issue, follow these steps:>1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then OK.>2. Expand the following registry key:>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCURRENTCONTROLSETCONTROLCLASS{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}>3. After you find the folder, double-click Upperfilters on the>right side.>4. Change the value from 0 to PartMgr, and then click OK.>5. Close Registry Editor,reboot your computer and then try to>use the activation wizard.>For those of you that don't know, BACK UP YOUR REGISTRY !!!!!>I can't stress this enough. Also, When you open the>upperfilters key the value will be empty, just type in this>space the "PartMgr" without qoutes.>This worked for me. The only problem is though, you won't know>if it worked unless you run the sim for more then 30mins.>There is nothing telling you that it registered.>Hope this works for everyone. Let me know as I have one more>fix, but this should do it.>Dan>p.s. Thanks to all those who posted in the last thread about>this. United we will always win :)>LoganI have this too because of a hardware upgrade ( Video Card) and I just looked and mine is already set this way and I still can't re-install. I'm getting responce from Stream which is the Support for Microsoft on this and they want me to re-install the OS. We are in the process of getting The Bahamas out and I'm not looking forward to this.Joe WatsonFREEflow Sceneries

I just did a lookup for "snapman" and all the hits talk about Acronis. I wonder if I have hosed my Acronis True Image installation now.Still not a fan of this activation stuff. I'll have to uninstall and re-install Acronis and see if that Upper filters goes back to snapman. Now I don't dare edit it back or try to use Acronis to back up my drive.Bruce

Brian, Thanks and please post back as this fix, from what I'm understanding, is comming from microsoft. I stumbled across it in desperation of not getting any help from them in the first place.Thanks, DanBTW, if your with Aces, why are is this the first time we've heard from you on this subject ? Just asking, nobody get upset :)Dan

Joe, Yeah, i feel somewhat the same way. Although my problem wasn't with the install, it was with the activation process. As for reinstalling the OS, in my opinion that's crap that you should have to reinstall the OS for this. I think that path by them is because they don't know what else to tell you so this is the "best option" in their minds. I've had them tell me this on other products that I was having problems with, only to find out later that this was not the answer.Dan

Dan, I got the same advice from Microsoft, but they left out the reboot. It was the reboot after changing to PartMgr that made it work for me.So far it in my research it seems that the key is related to filter drivers for your secondary drives. I plan to contact Acronis later today to see what they say about this key, before I make any more changes.To me this is a clear sign that the activation process is too fragile to force upon us consumers. I have wasted way too much time on it since purchasing FSX. I feel lucky that I haven't done what some others have done and what was suggested to me by Microsoft and that is re-install my OS.Bruce

Reinstall the OS? To install a game? Now maybe folks will understand why anti-activation patches are so popular, even among legitimate users. Things have, indeed, gone too far.Doug