R.I.P. Active Sky Evolution

[jgf]

10 minutes ago, JSMR said:

You paid for FSGRW and could never download weather for it? 
 

Oh, I would be livid had that happened.  You can download a trial which allegedly works for a week or a month or whatever before requiring registration.  Needless to say they'll not get my money.

[Baron Fritz]

This may be old news for some, but here a couple of items which may be of help:

- even if you have your shields suspended, you may still need to whitelist FSGRW. AVAST likes to act up in that fashion, and many programs are very sensitive to it.

- take deep look at your firewall settings, many firewalls have several layers of blocking and restriction of applications. Start by looking at the application and process monitor sections. I had problems with ASE and firewall conflict settings some time ago, and it drove me nuts until I stumbled onto the solution.

I have recently acquired FSGRW and so far it is behaving very well. Are you guys hinting that I may encounter surprises lurking on the horizon?

[Skywatcher12]

18 minutes ago, Baron Fritz said:

This may be old news for some, but here a couple of items which may be of help:

- even if you have your shields suspended, you may still need to whitelist FSGRW. AVAST likes to act up in that fashion, and many programs are very sensitive to it.

- take deep look at your firewall settings, many firewalls have several layers of blocking and restriction of applications. Start by looking at the application and process monitor sections. I had problems with ASE and firewall conflict settings some time ago, and it drove me nuts until I stumbled onto the solution.

I have recently acquired FSGRW and so far it is behaving very well. Are you guys hinting that I may encounter surprises lurking on the horizon?

 

I bought it and last used it years ago. The actual version of the program I think is unchanged. (v1.7)
This means there is nothing different with the program itself from years ago but the connection issues may be server based so they may have improved.

I'd personally have to go back and load it again to find what I didn't like or to do a direct comparison to ASE.
I remember waiting for it (loading times) took forever and the overall features were far more limited.

Obviously give it a try as it's at least the next best to AS and the best weather program still currently available and fully functioning.

Thinking about it, I might load it up again just to have that online option and to take a second look at it.
If I was to rank the best weather programs, the list would look like this:
1. ASE

2. AS 6.5

3. FSGRW

[Baron Fritz]

I have used both Active Sky  versions and now FSGRW and I agree with your ranking!

[defaid]

8 hours ago, JSkorna said:

Mark gets it but for the others:

 

"Memories
Light the corners of my mind
Misty watercolor memories
Of the way we were"

 

"Can it be that it was all so simple then?
Or has time re-written every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we?
Could we?"

 

If I could do it all over again, I'd do it all over you.

 

[JSkorna]

8 hours ago, caphavoc said:

Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Jim.

 

Dorian

 

Moved on like 10 years ago.

[johnhinson]

6 hours ago, jgf said:

Oh, I would be livid had that happened.  You can download a trial which allegedly works for a week or a month or whatever before requiring registration.  Needless to say they'll not get my money.

Compatibility > Run this program as Administrator     may solve that.

 

John

[LordofGats]

47 minutes ago, JSkorna said:

Moved on like 10 years ago.

you have spammed! warned! banned! arrested! no more access to flight sim!!!!!! !!!!!

[grau]

On 4/23/2023 at 11:32 AM, JSMR said:

So they’re only making it available for MSFS?  The only new and updated ‘simulator’? (Many I know don’t regard it as a true flight simulator like many other sims, fs2004 etc.)

 

If only all other former FS2004 developers would give their add-ons away for free. I’ve emailed many over the last year or so and none want to as they say they’re still making making money on FS2004 products. Go figure…

HiFi went into the tank years ago when Chris left. Kind of like Avsim when we lost the founder & very respected Tom Allenswoth.

 

Mitch

[Bwoinbeerr]

Long live FS2004.

 

Let the haters hate

[Bwoinbeerr]

On 4/24/2023 at 1:51 PM, JSkorna said:

Moved on like 10 years ago.

And I still use Fs2004, nothing wrong with it, aint it??

[JSkorna]

27 minutes ago, Bwoinbeerr said:

And I still use Fs2004, nothing wrong with it, aint it??

People still use Win 95 because there is nothing wrong with it, ain't it?

[jgf]

At least W95 didn't phone home with whatever details it could glean from your computer.

[jgf]

On 4/22/2023 at 6:51 PM, JSMR said:

Trying to figure out what that means. 

....

That they are too cheap (cost management) to maintain the servers (required network efficiency) to support any software on which they are no longer making money.  Planned obsolescence, "you must buy our new software because the old software can no longer connect to its servers".  I'm sure if Micro$oft could find a way they would permanently disable all versions of windows prior to W10.

[PhrogPhlyer]

8 minutes ago, jgf said:

I'm sure if Micro$oft could find a way they would permanently disable all versions of windows prior to W10.

Shhhh... they might hear you and take it as a suggestion.

[Baron Fritz]

Well.... I think you have to admit that there is a lot going for the axiom "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"

[Bwoinbeerr]

6 hours ago, JSkorna said:

People still use Win 95 because there is nothing wrong with it, ain't it?

That is like comparing apples and oranges..just accept that people still have FUN using fs2004

[JSkorna]

But it's ok to complain when a company stops supporting a legacy program after umpteen years. People can have as much fun as they want, but the main purpose of a business is to MAKE MONEY, something a few people don't realize here. 

[Bwoinbeerr]

17 minutes ago, JSkorna said:

But it's ok to complain when a company stops supporting a legacy program after umpteen years. People can have as much fun as they want, but the main purpose of a business is to MAKE MONEY, something a few people don't realize here. 

Oh absolutely, I agree with that

[JSMR]

18 minutes ago, JSkorna said:

But it's ok to complain when a company stops supporting a legacy program after umpteen years. People can have as much fun as they want, but the main purpose of a business is to MAKE MONEY, something a few people don't realize here. 

So why do they still support FSX and P3D? 

 

 

[jgf]

20 minutes ago, JSkorna said:

But it's ok to complain when a company stops supporting a legacy program after umpteen years. People can have as much fun as they want, but the main purpose of a business is to MAKE MONEY, something a few people don't realize here. 

  If people are still using that program, yes.  People keep websites going for years, even though they've only a fraction of the active members they once had, surely a business can support a server to let those who paid for their software continue to use it.   Micro$oft no longer supporting W95 or XP or Win7 doesn't mean you cannot install and use those OS, but taking down the AS servers means those of us who paid for that software (which still "works", just has no data source now) are SOL.  It also means I would not purchase from them again, how long before they take down the current servers.

[caphavoc]

9 hours ago, Bwoinbeerr said:

Long live FS2004.

 

Let the haters hate

You know, the most important tool in this forum is the "Ignore" button ... haters can hate as much as they like and you never get to see them spouting their vitriol (unless someone quotes them in a later post). Thanks Flightsim.com for such a valuable tool. Very much appreciated.

[PhrogPhlyer]

3 minutes ago, caphavoc said:

"Ignore" button ...

OK, I missed this one.

Although I do tend to read almost all the posts, as I learn a lot about the topics and those posting, a little bit at a time.

[Skywatcher12]

Think I'm the only one still happy. Long live FS9 and ASE and AS 6.5! 
I haven't kept up with MSFS (this may be wrong) but I don't think it can use anything other than real time weather like the built in weather system in FS2004 did. I hated this as I didn't want to be flying during the day using night weather or vice versa. The control and features of the Active Sky programs were a world ahead of where MSFS is today.

There was also a solution to run AS from weather files still available online mentioned in this thread. User has deleted the post.

[defaid]

11 hours ago, JSMR said:

So why do they still support FSX and P3D? 

 

 

 

Because sales of addons for those sims are still high enough to make the support a viable business proposition. Also, end-of-life is often pre-planned as part of the business model. Ultimately, in any business, it's the volume of sales of any product that determines whether or not the bean-counters are happy to spend money on supporting it. When sales revenue for that product diminishes to the point that the cost of support is greater than whatever percent of revenue then the business will end support. There are complex considerations like reputation and encouraging return customers (and in this case probably also increasing costs associated with server maintenance or replacement) but it always boils down to a single question: "How will this affect our profit?".

 

D

 

(I can take the dispassionate view here: I stopped using ASE when I dumped P3d)