TRauppius

Check for Android 5.0 or later, some tablets use proprietary mods of generic Android and then stopped updating at V 4.5.xx. This prevents some new apps from installing/updating and does not support the latest encyrption standard that some servers require.

Folks, PMDG has updated the OC again today. The change log indicates the OC fix was to address the livery installation that several forum members have reported. I have inctalled the OC update and can report that the livery loading problem appears to have been successfully fixed. I have loaded a bunch of 777 liveries. Todd

Yeah, I submitted a ticket to PMDG Product Support and they responded with a registry fix that leads up to a full/new installation of the new installers. This all worked fine, but now I am facing a livery install problem... the new "Livery not found in aircraft.cfg after it should have been added." message that is generated after attempting to either the download or .ptp (add) method of livery installation. I wonder if this is related to the the new OC update that occured early today? Todd R.

Ditto, exactly the same message. Early today the OC was updated and then indicated a new mini-update for the DC-6. This appeared to go OK but the former DC-6 liveries were ignored and I was forced to download them anew and choose to accept the existing .ini/.cfg files. This worked OK, but my 777-200 and 300 liveries are totally messed-up and will not allow new downloaded or add .ptp method to update to work (ie. no actual texture folder is installed in aircraft folder, nor is the aircraft.cfg update. All you get is the error message "Livery not found in aircraft.cfg after is should have been added." Waiting to hear any suggestions, Thank Todd R.

Thanks for your suggestion, but I have already tried to uninstall the base package using both the control panel and new installer. They both fail with identical WER messages. I was able to use the control panel to uninstall the 300 expansion pack though. The upgrade for the 737 and 747 worked fine, but the 777 is now messed up and I don't know how to get a clean delete and reinstall done. Any more suggestions? Todd Rauppius

Encountered installation problem with recent/latest 777 update. Previos update of 777-200/LR plus 300 expansion was 7/18/17 with version 1.10,0395 without any problems. This time I uninstalled the 300 expansion as using the Win 7 Control Panel to uninstall without any problem. I then forgot to uninstall the 777-200 Base Package prior to using the new/updated Base installer. Upon running the new installer with the "repair" button preselected the installation appeared normal until the progress bar reached about the 90% complete point. The installation failed at that point and generated a pop-up window stating "Feature Transfer Error". The box listed "Feature: FSX Version Original Microsoft Distribution" and "Error: The parameter is incorrect." I then unsuccessfully tried to uninstall the 777-200 Base Package using the "remove" option on the new installer and get the same failure to complete the process and an error message; also Windows outputs a WER as shpwn below: Faulting application name: setup.exe_PMDG 777-200LR/F Base Package FSX, version: 1.10.8414.0, time stamp: 0x589ea215 Faulting module name: ISSetup.dll, version: 23.0.0.428, time stamp: 0x589ea13c Exception code: 0xc0000005 Fault offset: 0x0000a70c Faulting process id: 0xc38 Faulting application start time: 0x01d3085697e3a011 Faulting application path: C:\Users\TODDRA~1\AppData\Local\Temp\{435ED4C2-D001-4474-B1D5-86427021CE96}\setup.exe Faulting module path: C:\Users\TODDRA~1\AppData\Local\Temp\{435ED4C2-D001-4474-B1D5-86427021CE96}\ISSetup.dll Report Id: 4ea70ea4-744a-11e7-a244-002421b43a31 Any help will be very much appreciated, I will stand down and try and not make this mess any worse than it is. Thanks, Todd Rauppius

YES

Everything is working again. IE11, Firefox, GetRight all OK. Thanks for the fix.

Firefox 42.0 works in both normal and private modes. Internet Explore 11 fails with "Page Can't be Displayed" message. GetRight fails and reports filez.avsim.net server connected... but continuously busy and not responding..

I too have tried all of the suggestions noted in prior postings and the earlier instances of extended outages of the library download function. I have tried IE 11, MSN Explorer 11, Mozilla, cache clearing, log out/on to no avail. I consistently get the "This page can't be displayed" message. Also, when I try and use GetRight to download via manually pasting in the URL I receive a response showing the filez.avsim.net server status as always "Server busy, waiting to retry...". GetRight shows a good connection to the server, but no server response, and so is further unable to search for mirror/alternative servers as it lacks a valid file size and time/date stamp to search with. I will continue to monitor this thread. Does the AVSIM moderator for this forum know of this current instance of library download problems? Good luck to all, Todd

This is a great product and it just keeps getting better with each timely update. I can now easily manage my ORBX universe + FSDT airports + T7 + (GSX, UTX, UT2, ENB, SHADE, etc.) with adequate FPS and improved awareness and management of OOM issues. I really like the addition of the realtime FSX memory in use gauge and the "video override" showing the max texture buffer being adjusted to met FSPS goals... very nice. Ditto the AGL switching. I would like to hear a little more of an explanation of the "Efficiency" metric; how is it derived, what does it mean, and how can you use the info provided. Also, had you considered alternate/multiple FSPS strategy/profiles? The current strategy seems focued on obtaining improved FPS. But for me I am a bit more concerned with obtaining the best visuals, emphasizing prompt texture loading and timely scenery autogen appearance, as long as smoothness and a MINIMUM FPS threshold is maintained. I can't wait to see what you can do with OOM issue... best wishes for continued success with this very worthwhile utility.

Yes, by all means please post these view modifcations. I am tired of manually fiddling with the zoom and positioning of the VC windows before each flight. Thanks in advance Paul,

Nope, cannot see any significant change. I just tried a short hop from KLAS to Nellis AFB suing the FSDT KLAS airport riding on top of Megascenery Las Vegas, plus REX Essential weather and UT2 and the frame rate (limited set at 30 fps) stayed was 26 during takeoff on runway 7L. Lowest I saw on the way to Nellis at 2000 above ground was a momentary 19 fps while some textures loaded. After that it went back to 26-30 fps.

If you have a licensed copy of FSUIPC you can create a custom throttle mapping for this plane that is non-linear. I have mine set (to slope 10) that about the first 25% of the axis counts result in only 10% change in thrust; in effect a 1:2.5 reduction in sensitivity. This Electra model is also quite sensitive to the weight/loading and I usually fly with full wing tanks and 50% of the center tank (yielding about 77% total) and the throttle mapping tweaked as noted to reduce the excessive thrust/weight ratio. The Electra II has an electronic engine controller that automatically regulates the fuel flow/torque versus the pitch in order to vary the HP/thrust delivered with the huge propellers maintaining an almost constant RPM in flight. The switch you noted reduces/increases the engine core and propeller RPM regime for ground/flight operations. Also, be sure to give yourself enough time and distance to bleed off speed at idle/flat pitch in order to get down into the gear and flaps range. While the thrust reverser makes the appropriate sounds in the KBT model, the FS model deceleration is much lower than the real airplane. Hope this helps as I think this is a fun model to fly; wish I could find a decent National Airlines livery though. Todd

I downloaded the full installation from my FlightSim Store account (the link for REX Essential had replaced my old download link), It took about an hour to download from the Singapore sever at an average of 1.4 mbs. I manually deactived the embedded startup call in my FSX configuration for the old REX FSX + Overdrive, and the ran the Essentials installation app after zipping all to a temporary folder. The installation went smoothly, as did the initial setup/configuration and server logon account stuff. In short, I am very impressed.... that is, once I learned how to tune the tune the refresh balance control so that I was getting enough time for the CPU to do all of the texture loading. This is the most realistic and immersive weather engine I have seen yet. I am looking forward to exploring all of the other options and features of this product. The basic set of textures already include HD (2048 and 4096) textures (but I only use the 1024 due my texture loading limits on my GTX285) and it looks great, especially the sky and lighting transitions; it works very well withmy combined ENB Series and SHADE shader tweaks. I look forward to downloading the 9.9 GB of Overdrive Texture adjunct when the become available. Thanks for a job well done, it is one heck of nice free upgrade. Todd Rauppius

Hello,First the very first time I am having an installation/activation problem with a PMDG product. The FSX NGX737 Base Package + SP1 has been working fine. Purchased NGX600/700 upgrade through nominal process at PMDG (got all the emails and codes, etc.). Ran the intsaller as administrator and firewall turned-off. Install looked normal, except for POSSIBLY a fleeting, and aborted, by the installer attempt to start FSX in the latter stages of the install (I normally use FPS 2.0 Limiter batch file to load FSX). At this point the installation simply ends... no nessages, nothing. Then upon manually starting FSX and selecting one of the newly installed 600/700 base models I get a small pop-up activation window that prompts for the code PMDG sent me. Code is entered... but then after about 60 seconds I get this error message: "Unable to connect to activation server. Please check your internet connection." Meanwhile, the internet connection is just fine as other windows are open and unsing the internet. I have not been able to get past this empasse for the last few hours. Any advice/suggestions? Thanks.Todd RauppiusWin 7, 64 bit, 6 GB ram, i7-920FSX Acceleration

I have had a few more days with the B377 now and it continues to amaze with small unexpected details that add to the realism.For example, the cockpit windows will slowly be cloudy due to accumulated condensation as the temperature drops with altitude and if the humidity stays high enough. It sort of just creeps in until you finally notice it and activate the windshield defrost control on the pilot's-side sub-panel; then it slowly melts away. Nice touch.The crew workload is high compared with modern automatic planes. You constantly have to watch and fiddle with turbocharger controls, intercooler flap settings, cowl flaps, pressurization, fuel management, etc.The VC from the flight engineer's position is especially neat as you can swivel around and zoom in-out on any/all positions. The VC panels/gauges are the sharpest, most readable at any zoom level, I have yet seen.I stand by my earlier FPS statement, but the texture demands are very tough in some of the "through the VC foreground to distant scenery background" looks. My 256M/7600GT barely gets by. Sometimes I have to momemtarily revert to "windowed" mode to fix the onset of menu blurries that occur when I am approaching the texture limit.I wonder if there will be soon be 3rd party paints for airlines like TWA and United?:7 :7

:-) Yes, this is definitely a keeper for me. I have only been using it a few days but it has already become on of my favorites.Everything works smoothly and is visually stunning; from the external views through the many VC panels. My old single CPU P4/3GHz/2G/7600GT rig is always struggling to keep up with the texture loading demands of assorted 3rd party aircraft, mesh, terrain, weather, and environment add-on apps; but somehow these A2A guys get the job done. Just better coding I guess.I just have the basic B377 (not the Accu-Sim add on), and at $36.99, although costly, it is good value and worth it in my view. The sense of immersion and "real" flying is very good on this product, and is the result of thorough systems emulation, great sounds, and fluid, detailed visuals. Well done to A2A.It comes with a nice set of liveries and some clever pop-up transperancy screens that help you manage all of the "stuff" usually manned by a 4 person flight crew. Again, very clever, enjoy.Todd

Bruce,I can speak from my personal experience with Nick's tuning on my Dell 8300/P4 system. Unfortunately, I did not pay enough attention to the the Dell and SP1a caveats that Nick placed in his tuning threads. I ended-up trashing my SCSCI RAID 0 boot disk array. Nick tried to help me repair/recover but it was too late for my boot disk.I then followed Nick's advice to build a slipstreamed installer disk using the latest MS SP2 installer and modules merged into/overriding my older Dell install disk. The rebuild went fine and I followed the rest of the tuning process to a normal conclusion. Since the rebuild I have had no further problems with using the O&O 8.5 degfag program. I also did the nHancer thing for my 7600GT/256MB card.The resulting FSX performance is much improved, although I still have a little bit of trouble with with the nearby scenery textures fully sharpening when flying low and fast; but not bad at all compared to the blurries I had before. So yes, in my opinion Nick's tuning is worth the effort. Prior tweaking efforts, and I tried most of them, were not as effective as Nick's tuning recommendations.ToddDell 8300/XP Home/SP2/P4/3GHz/2GB/nVidia 7600GT/256MB/FSX-Accel with SP2/FS Genesis/Ultimate Traffic/Ultimate Terrain US and Eur/FEX/ASX weather engine until FEX update come out/GEXen.

An interesting aside is that O&O still sells and services a bundled product called "The O&O Toolbox", and it includes one full license of the following products: O&O CleverCache 6 Professional, O&O Defrag 8 Professional Edition, O&O SafeErase 2, and O&O DriveLED 2 for $79 USD.

I also sent a slightly modified version of Nick's template letter to O&O and did not get favorable response (see below). It appears that some senior folks at O&O may be unaware of the detailed functional differences between 8.5 and their current 10.0 offering.I just wanted to pass on my response as Nick requested and think that Norm Owings request for O&O to take a harder look is a good next step. I wonder if Nick has given any thought to what "what next" if O&O continues to stonewall flurry of requests certain to begin arriving at the end of folks 30 day free trials.Nick, is there an alternative product that can do the same thing as O&O Defrag 8.5?Todd, ... the O&O response follows.....Dear Mr. Rauppius,Defrag 8.5 and Defrag 10 perform absolutely the same functions when the defragmentation mode

Nick,Thanks for the letter template. I have already sent mine to O&O and will let you know how it goes.I want to let you know that I have recovered/rebuilt my system after encountering the Dell/SP1a defrag disaster that rendered my HD unbootable. I followed all of you tips but, as expected, the MFT was damaged and so I ditched my SATA 2 RAID 0 array (with SCSI controller) in favor of a new/single/bigger SATA 2 drive. The new drive is faster and quiter than my old array.I used the slipstream procedure you pointed out to make a new bootable CD-ROM that upgrades my old Dell CD to add all of the new/recent SP2 stuff from MS. My old Nero 5 was able to create the new disk and the installation of XP2 on my new (no Dell partition) drive was uneventful. After reinstalling FSX and FSX/SP2 I rebuilt my mesh, landclass, Ultimate Traffic, Ultimate Terrain, FEX and GEXen stuff. It was working pretty good already. Then I did you tuneup procedure on the new boot and FSX partitions and things begab to look fabulous indeed. I have also used your nHancer settings for my nVidia 7600GT to good effect.Anyway, the final result is truly excellent and I want to thank you again for sharing your time and expertise. I am now looking forward to GEX Europe and finally doing some serious flying instead of complaining about FSX blurries et al.Todd

Nick,I follow everything you said and suggest, and things are looking somewhat grim. However, I found the Dell tech support archive has a procedure for resolving a missing or corrupt HAL.DLL file. Since I can now boot off the CD to bring up the recovery console they suggest going to C: and then using bootcfg /rebuild, then add installation to bootlist, then entering the load identifier as "Windows XP Home Edition" followed by /NoExecute=Optln /fastdetect and then a reboot after the C: prompt returns. Dell claims this will force a custom rebuild the corrupted HAL.DLL file.I guess this is worth a try. Is there any danger in further attempts to get CHKDSK /R to run to completion, or is the possible harm worse than the potential gain?Thanks again for your help, and I understand that we probably need to wrap up this thread soon.Todd

Nick,As you expected my reinstallation disks from Dell are 3 year old SP1a versions and many of the system files differ in size and date from the updated SP2 installation on my now problematic system. Not much I can do except perhaps copy over individual files from another PC I have that uses SP2. You may be wondering how I got around the stone-cold no NTLDR impasse; by following your suggested recovery of course. But it did not go quite the expected way.Picking up where I left off: Since the attempt to copy the missing NTLDR did not work I next tried the CHKDSK /R thing. As an aside, I had already performed the offline/at_startup Windows CHKDSK (with fix check-box on) as part of your original tuneup plan and got a clean, no-error, outcome. Anyway, the CHKDSK invoked from the recovery console paused a few times at ~25% point, and then just sort of stopped at the 50% point. I waited 90 minutes and it was still locked at 50% so I stopped and rebooted. Unexpectdly, the original missing NTLDR issue was now gone and the booting of Windows from the C drive proceeded until it reported "Windows cannot start because the following file is missing or corrupt....system32hal.dll ... please re-install a copy of the above".I then tried to boot to the repair CD-ROM and was greeted with the invitation to select <1> C:Windows for logon. This worked and I can now access the C drive with all of the usual commands that the recovery console provides. I browsed around directories and all of the "stuff" on the RAID array C: drive "appears" to be intact. I tried the MAP command again and was surprised that the mysterious Dell FAT16 49MB drive was now gone; it now just shows a slightly larger (by 49MB, I bet) C drive, plus opticals D and E. CHKDSK still will not run to completion though, and attempting to boot from C: yields the corrupt HAL.DLL message.Do you think copying over hal.dll from another XP/SP2 machine (say, via the floppy drive) has a chance? Or is the C drive somehow hosed with multiple errors that will lead to a succession of boot failures for one reason or another.At least I can now access the C drive to S...L..O..W..L..Y back up critical business records to floppy. I am planning on a short pause to try and salvage some key files before continuing with the recovery efforts.Again, any further thoughts and suggestions will be appreciated.Todd

Nick,Thanks for responding so quickly. Whatever ultimately happens I do appreciate your help very much. I did see your caveat, but went ahead because the feedback had been very positive and no one had reported a problem with your well documented procedure. I thought Dell PCs are very common so someone would have already been tripped-up by now and reported it to the forum. Oh well, it looks like I got caught holding the short straw this time.Your diagnosis, and some of your remedies, agree with the Dell folks FAQ concerning repairing a missing NTLDR. I have already attempted their procedure which is similar to your second set of instructions following "NEXT...". I also had to load a floppy disk containing the driver for the RAID array and had to hit F6 to get it to load. Unfortunately the recoveery console copy ntldr procedure failed with a "The file could not be copied" message. Anyway, it looks like you have a few other ideas for me to tryout and I will give them a try.I will let you know how it goes.Thanks,ToddP.S. The MAP command from the Recovery Console shows a mystery drive in addition to the C: drive array. I get:? FAT16 39MB DeviceHarddisk0Partition 1c: 226934MB DeviceHarddisk0Partition 2I tried copying the NTLDR file to C: and got the noted error msg.