Help with fs2002 + VFR Scenery + VFR Terrain on Windows 7 x64 please

I was lucky (I think) enough to pick this bundle up at a car boot sale recently, all discs present and correct, no scratches, so I know they should work in terms of reading the data. FS2002 seemed to install without any problems, and once I'd tweaked the graphics settings (I have a relatively powerful gaming PC) it looked pretty decent and very playable, however when I attempted to install any of the VFR scenery add-ons they threw up errors, no amount of compatibility or administrator settings would allow them to run. I managed to install them without any trouble at all in a VirtualBox emulated Windows XP, however that doesn't have very good 3D hardware emulation so fs2002 always just runs in safe mode, so I wasn't able to get the benefit of the added scenery (although it still ran at a very slick framerate).

I had thought that perhaps I could copy the installation from my emulated XP over to my Windows 7 installation folder, however I didn't really notice much or any improvement in ground texture or mesh after doing so. Is there any way to confirm whether or not fs2002 has actually picked up the new textures and meshes, and is actively using them? Would anyone happen to know which files I should need to copy across and if there are any registry tweaks or in-game configurations I need to change or check? Maybe the scenery.cfg file or something like that?

Really would like to get this game running with the add-on scenery on my Windows 7 PC, so thank you for any help you can give.

Also with this bundle was fs98, I had read / saw on youtube that fs98 and fs2002 are unstable (it has randomly crashed on me a few times, I had just put that down to me messing around and it being run on Windows 7). Is fs98 worth bothering with? Is fs2004 a vast improvement over fs2002?

Hi,

Welcome to the forum.....

I suspect the issue regarding the VFR scenery is related to the lack of the SECDRV security app- a function that is required for discs to be read that used a security tool called SafeDisc to deter pirating.

With the launch of Win 10 MS decided to remove the SECDRV app as it was known for a number o years that the app itself was security risk. They subsequently decided to the disable it in Win 7/8/Vista via a windows update - KB3086255.

There are a number of fixes available for Win 7 - either delete the KB (but note that Win 7 updates will re-install it periodically) or re-activate the SECDRV function manually.

See HERE and HERE for info

WRT to fs98 V 2002 V 2004......that is down to your choice but, personally, I would forget fs98. FS2004 is better that 2002 in some respects - see HERE, https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?71218-Comparison-Question-FS2002-v-FS2004 and HERE for some comparison info.....

Thank you very much, enabling and starting the secdrv service seems to have done the trick. I'm sure this is probably the cause of the problems I've had with a few other old CD/DVD game installers too.

Thank you also for the advice on fs98 / fs2004, I will know what to look out for now.

Hi again,

Just remembered I also have the Apollo GIGA Scenery volumes 1 - 3 for Germany, when I try to run the disc Autorun or Setup it does nothing, I thought it might be the secdrv thing but that is still enabled. I have tried compatibility for Windows XP(SP3) and Run as Administrator, no change. Any further advice or knowledge of these scenery discs?

Thanks.

Sorry but I have no experience of the GIGA scenery.

One thing I can suggest is to copy the contents of all of the disks to a temp folder on your hardrive, being sure to have separate folders for each disk named exactly as the disk is titled, and then try to run it from there.

Sorry but I have no experience of the GIGA scenery.

 

One thing I can suggest is to copy the contents of all of the disks to a temp folder on your hardrive, being sure to have separate folders for each disk named exactly as the disk is titled, and then try to run it from there.

Sorry, in my case this didn't work. No matter, I very recently found Flight Simulator X (non-Steam edition) in a charity shop so my attention has switched to that, installed no problems on my Windows 7 x64, so far so good!

Sorry, in my case this didn't work. No matter, I very recently found Flight Simulator X (non-Steam edition) in a charity shop so my attention has switched to that, installed no problems on my Windows 7 x64, so far so good!

Never seen anyone move from FS98 to FS2002 to FS2004 to FSX that fast! lol

To save some time, you might also want to check out P3D and X-Plane. The setup issue you had was likely your PC, not the discs. Anyhow, good luck with whatever sim you end up with.

It is normal in Just Flight Products unfortunatelly! SECDRV does not work in Windows 10

Note that this is a 3½ year old thread...

It is normal in Just Flight Products unfortunatelly! SECDRV does not work in Windows 10

If you write to JustFlight they'll supply a work-around ... at least they did for me and my Flying Club install :)

Despite the thread being years old I think it is appropriate to point out that the SECDRV issue does not only affect Just Flight products - it affects many other flight sim related products and indeed thousands of other games, apps etc...

The actual copyright software that relied on the SECDRV file is actually more commonly known as SafeDisc and it was widely used to provide copyright protection for CD/DVD based products....

It can also affect Win 7, 8 and XP users as MS released a KB patch to disable it. The only difference is that users of these older OS versions have a number of simple to apply options available to them to restore SECDRV usage but Win 10/11 users don't - there is a way but it is not an easy fix for most users....