Restoring a backed up copy of Fs9 .Help needed please.

Hello all.

Could somebody point me in the right direction to a good tutorial on installing a new copy of Fs9 and then copying over it with a backed up copy on an external drive.

I usually adopt the trial and error approach, but on this occasion want to make the process as short and painless (on my eyes)as possible.

 

Thanks

Andrew

Why not just copy & paste the backed up version straight into your C:\ drive? then open that folder & right-click the FS9.exe & send to desktop.

 

I use teracopy from http://www.codesector.com/teracopy as it is a super fast copy utility.

Then use the Registry Repair tool from Flight1 to sort out the registry from https://www.flight1.com/view.asp?page=library

 

I've done this probably about 20 times with no issues at all, as I'm the 'librarian' of our club, & I load my master backup onto new members PC's, so we all have the same scenery & planes.

 

This way, you can also have multiple installs of FS9, such as Golden Wings, Modern, etc.

 

Regards,

Robin

Why not just copy & paste the backed up version straight into your C:\ drive? then open that folder & right-click the FS9.exe & send to desktop.

 

I use teracopy from http://www.codesector.com/teracopy as it is a super fast copy utility.

Then use the Registry Repair tool from Flight1 to sort out the registry from https://www.flight1.com/view.asp?page=library

 

I've done this probably about 20 times with no issues at all, as I'm the 'librarian' of our club, & I load my master backup onto new members PC's, so we all have the same scenery & planes.

 

This way, you can also have multiple installs of FS9, such as Golden Wings, Modern, etc.

 

Regards,

Robin

 

Thanks Robin

That's what I thought you should do ,but I believe some people say you must first install the original sim from the discs and THEN copy your backup over that.

I will try your suggestion first though as it would save a lot of time.

 

Thanks for your help.

 

 

Andy

Andy, it works!

In fact, whenever I install a new plane or scenery in my sim, I first unzip/install into a temp folder to check it all out, then I copy that into the sim, as well as copying it into my backup on my portable drive as well into an 'Update' folder there, so it becomes easy to copy & paste the updates into the sims of our club members, to keep everyone updated.

 

Regards,

Robin

If FS9 was installed into the same location and you didn't uninstall it, just copying a backup to the same location will work. Otherwise you will not get a registry entry, and many payware addons will not work.

Then you can use the Flight1 Registry Fix program to point the registry to your FS9 installation and then payware addons will work again.

If I may please ask, what exactly will this registry program do for FS2004? Sometimes I want to uninstall mine then reinstall it, only reason for that is because I want to reset everything back at zero and it is always revealed to do something with this registry but I don't understand anything about it. I don't mind addons as I don't use many of them, my only big addon is AI traffic and that is currently a working progress backing it up.

All the Registry Fix tool does is make an entry in the Registry the same way FS9 would do when it is installed. It is an entry that basically gives the install location for the sim.

I almost forgot...

When doing a backup, obviously you are copying & pasting from your PC to a portable drive, do not forget to copy the Flight Simulator file from My Documents, as that is where all your added in flights go.

 

After you have done the main copy & pasting to the portable drive, rename the new folder & the FS9.exe to, for example Flight Simulator 9SE & FS9SE.exe (SE for Special Edition).

This way, if you do a 2nd install, for Golden Wings, or, as I have done for our members, you have a unique version that does not clash with your existing install. By renaming each time, you can have multiple versions of the sim.

 

I have also found that, as everything has been copied across, all add-on scenery as already been activated, providing the folder stays the same. Also, the 'new' sim will also show all the existing flights that were previously within the original My Documents folder.

 

I hope this all makes sense.

 

PS, what you can do as well, is to make a backup of a brand new fresh FS9 install. It just saves a lot of time when reinstalling (dont forget to copy the folder in My Documents)

 

Have fun,

Robin

Thanks Robin

That's what I thought you should do ,but I believe some people say you must first install the original sim from the discs and THEN copy your backup over that.

I will try your suggestion first though as it would save a lot of time.

 

Thanks for your help.

You can do it that way, too.

 

It saves running a Registry Repair tool because it sets the registry entry correctly, and it also creates a correct uninstall procedure in Windows.

 

John

Sure, John, you can, however, the Registry Repair Tool takes about 1 minute, even less, a full FS2004 install off the DVD's takes ages, & a copy/paste, using a fast copy utility is far quicker. Uninstalling FS2004 is not problematic at all. I just delete the folder & run CCleaner & Glarry's as well.

Never an issue, for me or on many other PC's that I've looked after.

 

Regards,

Robin

Hello again Robin.

I Tried your suggested method of simply copying my backup of FS9 from its external drive and pasting it into The C:drive . IT WORKED! in fact I didn't have to use the registry reset program (which I do have) I ran the sim as is, and it worked perfectly well, I had a three hour flight last night with no problems ,ctds etc.

I wont be perfectly happy until I have made more flights but its all go at the moment.

One little thing that's been bugging me a little though .When I ran the sim I had to make a lot of changes i.e. display settings , realism settings ,joystick assignments had to be reset etc ,I would understand if I was installing a first time copy of Fs9 ,but this was just my backup simply copied and pasted as you advised ,so I don't understand why I had to redo my sim settings.

Anyway thanks for your tip ,it seems to have worked perfectly.

By the way I don't no if you are a Windows Ten user or not ,but if you are do you allow windows to automatically download updates or do you disable them (which you can do contrary to opinion)via the 'services screen'

I have just had to install Windows 10 home again (as well as Fs9). In my previous install of W10 I did disable updates ,and had no problems ,but the consensus seems to be that you should allow auto updates to be installed. I just worry that Msoft will install something that causes FS9 to malfunction in some way ,so Iam interested in other simmers views on this subject.

 

Anyway Robin and other posters as well thanks for your help.

 

Andrew

If I uninstall and reinstall FS9 without doing the registry thingy, is it fine? Just to reset everything back to zero. I'm getting very low fps drops for a few seconds anywhere anytime during flights, it happens randomly but not a lot, I would say every now and then. I take it there might be an addon causing it so I rather install them again and test them for long hours each individually to find out the cause.

 

@Horatio, you can set how you want updates to be dealt. Automatic download is fine but keep the installation progress manually, meaning you decide what to install/not install.

I'm using Windows 10 Home edition and I allow all updates.

Updates are there for a reason, and I prefer to have the latest version. Especially security updates.

 

Yes, there are many who will disagree with me, please let's not have this debate here. It's been done hundreds of times before.

Hi,

 

FS9 itself does not need a registry entry and will run just fine, as you found. However, many FS utility programs (ADE, payware addons, etc.) will need one to find FS9.

Look Here:

 

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/340076-migrating-fs9-from-xp-32bit-to-windows-7-64bit/

 

I have ported over my latest copy of FS9 three times now and this works every time.

 

David

One little thing that's been bugging me a little though .When I ran the sim I had to make a lot of changes i.e. display settings , realism settings ,joystick assignments had to be reset etc ,I would understand if I was installing a first time copy of Fs9 ,but this was just my backup simply copied and pasted as you advised ,so I don't understand why I had to redo my sim settings.

 

All those settings are in your FS9.cfg file which you didn't back up. When you started FS from your new install it simply recreated the FS9.cfg again with default settings. Next time backup the FS9.cfg as well to not lose settings.

100% correct. That was my initial mistake.

However, the scenery.cfg comes across when you paste your backup, so there should be no need to redo your scenery library. But, if your original was installed into the default C:\Programs folder, & the backup installed into C:\ directly, you might have to load the scenery.cfg folder into a text editor & replace the path.

(I use Editpad lite (free) from https://www.editpadlite.com/

 

Or just redo the scenery library if you not comfortable with editing.