FS9 Brain Teaser

[silverheels2]

OK here's my conundrum. I have a fully mature FS9 installation that has been running for around 10 years on the same machine. Never been reinstalled. Running all the alphabet soup, UT, GE, UT2, many payware and freeware sceneries, airports. I ordered a new rig and it will show up middle of next week. It will run Win7 Pro 64.So I am planning the transition from old rig to new. The way I am thinking now is to install FS9 in the new machine on a directory separate from Program Files (86) although I will have only one hard drive ($$$$). Then I plan to copy key folders out of the old FS9 like Addon Scenery, gauges, effects, scenery, texture, etc. from the root directory. Then overwrite scenery.cfg and fs9.cfg with the old (current) files. I plan to do that as many of the freeware sceneries overwrite files in the global scenery, texture, and effects folder. Lastly I plan to reinstall GE, UT, and various payware sceneries over top of the transferred freeware scenery and transferred folders containing previously installed payware files. Now my question is will the payware sceneries when installed just overwrite their own files transferred earlier? It seems they will since the file names are not changed within FS9. If so it seems my planned approach should work ok. Anyone see problems with my approach? I appreciate your comments.

Thanks

Rick

[Wildthing]

I don't see any problems. I did the same myself during my recent format. One thing to keep in mind is that if you have any DRM activation protected scenery or aircraft (Cloud9 and FSDreamteam airports or IFLY 737NG aircraft) it is best to uninstall them before doing the big swap. Other than that, no problem. Just install FS9 into your new install as normal, then copy/paste the entire package into your FS9 install.

[Palmored]

If you have many liveries installed for payware aircraft you plan to REinstall, back up your aircraft.cfg files. If not, you'll have to install all of your repaints again when you run the installer.

[pschlute]

With win7 it is easy to partition your hard drive if you wish. So before installing anything you can create a new volume specifically for FS9.

 

Before you uninstall or turn off your old computer, check that you have all your keys for payware products.

 

Dont forget the 9.1 update.

 

If you have problems with any PMDG aircraft, this may help. I know it refers to FSX, but I believe it relates to FS9 too.... http://forum.avsim.net/topic/452828-blank-gauages/?hl=%2Bthose+%2Bcover+%2Bprerequisite+%2Bfiles+%2Bneeded+%2Bacross+%2Bwhole+%2Bproduct+%2Bline#entry3090104

[whitegn]

Been there, done that. I did a fresh "vanilla" install of FS9 from the original CDs to a newly created folder on the new Win7 machine. I then copied all the FS9 files from a backup (file copies) of the old severely toasted XP machine over the top of the new Win7 installation. Don't forget the stuff buried outside of the FS9 folders (FS9.cfg and the likes). Had a few hiccups like having to reregister FSUIPC, had to track down some fonts that some gauges used but weren't in Win7, and I reinstalled EZ Scenery rather than copying it, but overall it worked fine. Did the same on a second machine and it didn't work - in that case I uninstalled FS9, cleaned out everything that the uninstall left behind, and tried again. Worked ok the second time around, so I probably messed something up on the first attempt. You may need to reinstall some payware stuff as it could have the registration recorded in the Windows registry. Once it is installed, however, you should be able to copy any mods like repaints from the old to the new.

 

Going by your "10 year" statement, I'm guessing you may be going from XP to Win 7? If that is the case, be ready for the black mouse pointer in full screen mode (no permanent fix I believe). I also had a gauge which played selectable wav files (pretty sure it was Infltmus.zip) which, while a bit shaky in FS9 on XP, persistently crashed my FS9 on Win7. I gave up in the end, and got rid of it from the panels I had it in. So yeah, expect a few annoyances with the change.

[silverheels2]

Thanks everyone for weighing in. These are all very helpful suggestions some of which I may have overlooked in the heat of battle. I do have another question on pschlute's thought on the partitioning. I know that it seems to be important to install FSX on a separate drive from Win7. Is it thought to be the same for FS9? I am now planning to create another partition as you suggest, but do you think that is important for FS9?

Thanks

[pschlute]

As you were going to install outside of prog files (x86), I dont think it makes much of a difference permission-wise. I just had the same setup when I used winXP and decided to continue it with win7. Makes it neater having FS9 in its own little box.

 

Check the current size of your FS9 setup so you know how big to make the new volume. I set a partition size of 240 GB, and my FS9 "drive" uses 95 GB of that.

 

ps if you are presently using XP (or earlier) check out UAC in win7. I have mine turned off.

 

Peter

[ronzie]

In Win 7 turning UAC off does not take care of all application permission issues. If necessary on an app that has a problem do this:

 

Set up a shortcut to the app .exe file. Right click on it and choose properties. Activate Run As Admin here (the first security level). Now click Advanced to open a second dialog. Click to check Run As Admin here. Click OK to return to the first properties dialog. Click Apply to save both property dialog settings. Click OK to close.

 

The first dialog is UAC and the second one allows one app to talk to and command another. This covers all bases in case something auto-installs in a Program Filers hierarchy.