rich135

Seems like there are plenty of third party aircraft, both free and professional grade. Given a fixed budget and staff, I would rather see MS resources focused on development of the FS engine, rather than components that third parties can easily produce.

Gee whiz. Thank you tdragger and others from the MSFS team for putting up with this. I nominate y'all for sainthood. I am sure many of us do appreciate this opportunity and will endeavour to be courteous, reasonable and realistic.Thanks

I second that idea, Rayed. Core components such as the graphics engine and the flight model are key components that only the MS team can make right. Other things such as ultra-realistic ATC, high detail scenery, etc. would be nice to have in the core product, but may not be feasible given the mainstream market and resource budget. Furthermore, one implementation of a component will probably never satisfy everyone. However, with good API's for multiplayer, traffic injection, "official" FSUIPC, the sky is the limit :-> For example, you can have VoxATC, or Radar Contact, VATSIM, or whatever. And at the end of the day, if you still have a "special need" that is not satisfied, just roll your own! :)Cheers,Rich

I do not use WidevieW now, but I would not hesitate to buy multiple copies of FS if the same capability was supported directly by FS, or via an "official" API. Hope the reason is obvious, but I will be happy to explain further if not.

Harry,I had the same issue. FS2004 on XP keeps an open file handle to each XML gauge (at least it does on my systems). This prevents other apps from writing. You can release the handle from FS2004 using a third party tool such as 'Process Explorer' from www.sysinternals.com. Here is how:1. Open Process Explorer and click on fs9.exe.2. Menu > Find > Find Handle3. Enter 'xml' and click search4. Double click on the .xml gauge file you wish to save5. The file will now be highlighted in the lower pane.6. Right click on the File entry, then Close HandleThe above procedure will release the handle for a specified XML gauge, allowing you to save the file from you editor while FS is running. Next, you can use RELOAD_PANELS as described in this thread.It is not clear why FS keeps all of these handles open. Closing the XML gauge handle does not seem to have any negative impact. In my testing, the above procedure works for a gauge until Windows is rebooted, even across FS reloads. That behavior is a complete mystery to me.I would be interested to know why some folks do not have this issue (i.e., what version of Windows?)Regards,Rich