davej

Very well, thanks! Just trying to enjoy some flight simming, but it's hard to fly without a PFD I have learned..

Kind of silly to ask someone to respond with their name and then lock the post. Whatever. The PMDG folks have been quick and eager to help, so hopefully that works out. What's up Kyle.. Will do, once I get this new plane to work properly!

I posted for some help regarding my PMDG NGX software a couple of days ago, and during the past two days that I have actually been getting help from the PMDG crew, it seems like my topic got locked within 24 hours of my original post, before I even had a chance to reply to it after someone asked for some validation. Not sure why exactly that is, but you can rest assured that I paid for my software, and am getting assistance from the technical staff.. It hasn't been totally resolved yet although it is definitely related to an activation issue, and I think I am going down the road of having to reinstall FSX altogether. I'm not sure yet. But I think the quick draw to pitchforks and demanding full names and then locking topics is a bit over the top.. Just my opinion I guess. That's partly the reason I got out of the whole VATSIM business was this overwhelming simulated-power struggle. If there's anything that really got on my nerves, it was people locking topics on the forums for no reason. I do appreciate your help and the quick responses - it's just that the PMDG folks are the responsible party here, so I defaulted to dealing directly with them once they took up the assignment. But please remember that although this is the internet, not everybody is a crook. David Jedrejcic Former ZDC ATM and VATUSA8 (...and current law-abiding citizen, despite any rash claims to the contrary)

I think I can skip doing the repair, as I've already done the full uninstall/reinstall cycle and nothing changed. I already opened a ticket with PMDG, but the options were "product support" and "customer support." Customer support leads me here, so I posted this thread. Product support seemed to imply that they would only entertain issues having to do with product licensing and activation codes and such, and not technical issues like the one I'm having. It seemed to me that my only route was to ask in this forum - am I mistaken? Will the PMDG folks get back to me with this level of detail? I agree.. But I certainly have at least read/write permissions on all the subfolders where FSX and the NGX is installed, and that doesn't seem to help.

Thanks by the way for your quick responses.. Yes, my account has all administrative privileges, I don't use any other account and I've not had any issues when installing programs before. I have not modified this panel, nor any of the panels on my FSX install - the last time I did that was with my FS9 setup. I uninstalled the PMDG 737 NGX altogether, and reinstalled it again last night to make sure I didn't do anything wrong. When I tried to install the latest service pack on top of that, the installer said that my software already had these updates and asked me if I wanted to install the updates anyway, and I said no and exited. Then loaded up FSX with a "default" flight, then loaded one of the PMDG flights that came with the software, and the PFD display is literally missing from the design as you can see in the picture - it's not like it's just a black square, which is what I woudl expect if I'd done something wrong. The designers of the software clearly made this screen for some reason, but I have no idea why, and I can't find any way to get rid of it and get my PFDs functioning. I mean, the FO's PFD has a huge mechanical compass in it, for petes sake! lol.. What in the world did they do this for?

Ok, I tried that - no luck. Still the same issue with the PFD after starting the sim with a Cessna flight, and then loading a flight with the PMDG.

Please see the attached picture of the cockpit issue I'm having - my PFD's do not work at all, and in fact seem like they are intended to be taken out of service, if you will.. It looks like the displays were removed by the ground crew! However, the PFD's will work if I click on their locations, and they bring up a separate window with the PFD in it - those show up without any problem.. I have done some checking around in the forums, and a few people have recommended going into the FMC and changing the equipment settings for the PMDG setup, but I have checked and unchecked all of the ones that are even remotely related to the PFDs, and nothing has helped. I also noticed that the PMDG manual talks about using the "default ultralight at friday harbor to be your default startup state in FSX" and warns strongly that things might go wrong if this is not the case.. Well call me stupid, but I had changed my default flight to bring up a cold and dark PMDG 747 flight, and now I can't find exactly what that flight is that they reference. Perhaps I erased the flight that came with FSX freshly installed? I have a hard time believing that nothing else is wrong with my setup except for this, and that it could be due to this explanation. Recall that the PFD's are not simply not functional, but have been removed by the ground crew lol - see the attached picture. I just installed the 737 NGX, it has the latest service pack, I'm using Windows 7 with FSX, and my PMDG 747 models work just fine. Please tell me that someone knows why this is - any help is appreciated.