Paavo

I asked you to give an example of what restrictions you have out of your control. Who and how forces you to take stance against users porting their addons over? Is this a real issue or just a tought experiment?

True. In the end, users themselves should be knowledgeable about what they install on their computers, but I imagine this to be extremely marginal issue of an issue at all. According to library statistics, there are 14 000 addons filed under FSX here at AVSIM. I challenge everyone to find a single addon that comes with restriction to use it with FSX only. I would very much like to contact its author and ask why that restriction was set. Not the mention that neither does a vast majority of payware addons come with simulator restriction. (I hereby also challenge you to find a single such addon.)

This is more like me selling cross-country tires for street bicycles. And bicycle manufacturers seeing at as a "lost sale" because no-one will buy second bike (with cross-country tires) from them. I really have no other explanation than "potential" lost profits for their worries.

There are two separate issues here: 1. Addon porting from original developer's point of view. 2. Addon porting from Lockheed Martin's point of view. Let's analyze them: 1. As I stated, in many parts of the world, consumer protection laws guarantee the right to end user to use legally obtained software as he or her wishes, unless it is commercial use or piracy. If license agreement prohibits it, then prohibiting clauses are void. Bottom line: if there are restrictions, porting is allowed only for personal use. If there aren't (think of vast amount of freeware!), then anything can easily be ported over for any use. 2. With regards to Prepar3D, all users can port everything over as long is its license doesn't explicitly prohibit it. In that case, porting over is allowed for personal use. I would prefer Lockheed Martin's representatives to explain if "personal use" stated in copyright laws has the same definition as in their restriction on "entertainment use". Like forum rules state, this matter is better left to Lockheed Martin: http://forum.avsim.n...ad-eula-notice/ So all in all, what excatly is the problem here? if you are now going to deliberately lock your customers down, then this is simply unethical, just as it would be unethical for car manufacturers to make self-repairs (instead of visiting their service centers) as difficult as possible. I, for one, would get my next addons from a company that not only sells, but also makes an effort to support them as widely as possible, or at least doesn't hinder others from doing it. Are there actually any sublicensing terms that keep you from allowing me to port airplanes I bought from you over to Prepar3D? Or is it just a decision of your own? It is very unfortunate that artificial compatibility barriers are becoming increasingly common these days, and often for no other reason than just pure greed as is the case with music industry.

Yes, the tool now does work with Prepar3D installed on any drive. When you create virtual folder, the tool will hide your actual FSX from the system. You are prompted to choose a location for virtual FSX folder (just a placeholder so installers can detect FSX' presence, does not contain any actual FSX files) and that must be somewhere on the same drive with Prepar3D. In this case, dissatisfaction should be shown towards developers who for no good reason lock their products down and force users to pay twice for essentially the same piece of software, just like the music industry is often critizised for forcing you to buy the same song twice if you wish to play it both on your CD-player and on iPod. If we let licensing terms get too restrictive, we may soon face a situation where we have to buy, say, two identical copies Flight1 Britten-Norman Islander - one licensed to be used for VFR flights and other, the more expensive, for IFR. My tool is much like an independent car repair shop helping to extend your car's (addons') lifetime if the original manufacturer has closed down or doesn't provide good enough support. It would be very unethical of car manufacturers to start deliberately hindering independent repairs just to boost their own sales.

There is already a tool for that called Sandboxie. It will run a program in a "sandbox" that looks to the program like a whole computer. However, nothing that program does in the sandbox will affect your real computer and you can easily delete or reset the sandbox. See: http://www.sandboxie.com/

I am simply stating that in many parts of the world, user may use legally obtained product how he or she wants, unless piracy or commercial use is involved. It is considered one of the most basic consumer rights. When developers release a product, they must be ready to see that right exercised by their customers, just as they have to accept returns, no matter if there's "NO RETURNS!!!" written all over the product or if any licensing deals between developer and data supplier (or whoever else) prohibit them. If a developer has obtained, say, information on a certain airplane from its manufacturer for use in FSX only and there is trouble arising from that product being used on Prepar3D, then the developer is at fault for not taking consumer protection laws into account when signing deals. However, I have yet to meet a developer in such "licensing hell". There may be terms not allowing the original developer to release product to Prepar3D, but I would be very surpised to see an agreement punishing the developer if end user ports the product over. Can you give such example? The developer must've been mad to sign something that holds him/her liable for actions outside of his/her reach. I think I need to explain what is going on on file level. If virtual FSX is not present (deleted or not created at all), and you have FSX and Prepar3D installed, then this is what's going on: There are two installations, FSX and Prepar3D. If you make any changes to Prepar3D folder you see on your computer, changes will be made to Prepar3D folder on your hard drive and the changes will appear when you start Prepar3D. However, if you create virtual folder, things get interesting. The original FSX is renamed. Instead of it, the folder you chose on first run to serve as virtual FSX folder is turned into that and it now points to Prepar3D. If you make a change to Cessna 172's aircraft.cfg, that change will appear in both virtual FSX and Prepar3D folder, because you are actually changing only one file - the aircraft.cfg belonging to Prepar3D! See diagram: It would of course be amazing to have a snapshot tool tailored for FSX and Prepar3D, I personally don't believe I have the skill to deliver it. Such tools are way too error-prone for my skill level. You may be better off with generic backup software such as EaseUS Todo Backup, available for free from http://www.todo-back...up-software.htm

When you click Create virtual folder, the tool in general follows these steps: 1. Checks if FSX is installed. If it is, then registry keys are backed up and all FSX folders (FSX root, AppData, ProgramData, MyDoc\FSX Files, MyPic\FSX Files) are renamed, with ".backup" appended to their name. A backup of registry keys is made. 2. Creates links, dummy folders, etc. to where FSX files and folders were before renaming them. It also extracts dummy exe files, etc. 3. Writes registry information pointing to the path you chose as virtual folder. 4. Starts custom-programmed Windows service that monitors the state of links to prevent their deletion (some installers don't respect links). When you delete virtual folder, these steps are made in reverse and changes are restored from backup. You only need to define virtual FSX folder. This is the folder that will be treated as root folder and this is where you point installers that can't read registry and ask you for the path to FSX. Other fake FSX folders (AppData, ProgramData, etc) are created automatically.

Creating and deleting virtual folder is the same as enabling and disabling it. If virtual folder has been created, installations are redirected from FSX to Prepar3D. If it has been deleted, installations go to FSX. I can rename the buttons for clarity. I admit I may have a bit of trouble seeing how to best convery to average user what the tool is doing because knowing what goes on under the hood makes me I think in possibly confusing terms.

Third party developers may indeet not support addons installed into Prepar3D, but as I pointed out, using FSX addons with Prepar3D (or any other simulator that supports them) is completely legal in most of the world, including the whole European Union, no matter what the license says. This is to guarantee basic interoperability to end user and to prevent product lock-outs like "this CD works with Sony CD-players only".

Yes, it will. I must warn that there may be incompatibility issues with both simulators installed and with a certain addon installed for both simulators. For example, if you install Captain Sim C-130 to FSX, it writes installation information to registry and you won't be able to install it for second time (to Prepar3D) because registry will tell the installer that C-130 is already installed. I can program hacks to bypass it into my tool, but this requires a bit of co-operation from someone who has the addon since such hacks have to be tailored for each addon.

Thank you for kind words. If you want to install an addon for both simulators, follow these steps: 1. Run the migration tool and make sure virtual folder has not been created. If it has, delete it. 2. Run addon's installer. Addon will be installed into real FSX. 3. Run migration tool. Create virtual folder. 4. Run addon's installer again. Addon will be installed into virtual FSX folder, redirecting installed files into Prepar3D. If you then wish to run Prepar3D, keep virtual folder. If you want to run FSX, delete it. As I previously wrote, there is an issue with having FSX and Prepar3D installed on the same computer: only one set of shortcuts/etc gets installed and they will be pointing to last installed copy of each addon. Link to version 1.1 is at the bottom of the page: http://www.flightsim...-migration-tool It will automatically remove previous version. I should have pointed it out more clearly. My bad.

I spoke with a few testers and since this has been requested before, I have now implemented support for side-by-side installations (it was already programmed, but deliberately left out). It is automatically handled when FSX is detected, and no user interaction is needed. For user's information, a warning is shown (screenshot) and I have added information on possible side effects of side-by-side installations to documentation. And of course, installations of Prepar3D residing on drives other than Windows' are now supported as well, with the requirement that virtual FSX has to be on the same drive with Prepar3D. Existing customers have been notified via email.

This is possible with manual editing, but not recommended, because it may cause corruption, and that's why its not available in FSX support for Prepar3D. The thing is, if you for example use an addon that has a single copy of settings outside of simulator's root folder (in, say, C:\Users\Paavo\AppData\Roaming\..), then on uninstalling one of the two copies, the remaining copy may lose its settings, too (depends on uninstaller behaviour), because the settings for both of them were kept in the same folder. I first discovered such risk with Reality XP gauges that keep their settings under C:\ProgramData\Reality XP\. You really have to know very well what you're doing for the side-by-side approach to succeed.

There was a gentleman writing in vulgar language to support email claiming that my tool is a total rip-off, and threatening to post it all over the Internet. Here's a snippet from my explanation to him: I have not "copied the idea", but made use of Windows feature. Virtual folders were not invented by the authors of "symlinker" software as he seemed to suggest, but by UNIX programmers back in 1978 and they are a feature of all modern file systems. With my tool, I am not simply repackaging something Windows already has, but my tool creates different kinds of links between a multitude of simulator-specific files and folders and monitors what is done to them. This is more than "symlinker" offers and I believe my tool is beneficial to those who lack experience with fairly heavy tweaking of their computer. I run a small flightsim news site (in Estonian) at http://www.lennusimu.net/ and I get fairly often emails from people who are having trouble with even as simple tasks as installing repaints. Terms such as "file system hard links" are way above their head, but this should not stop them from enjoying their FSX addons in Prepar3D.