multiple FS installations

[sinzov]

Hi,

is it possible to point the flight planner to different installations of the FS (fs9 and fsX) ? not at the same time of course, but one after the other ? i run several installs of fs9 - a vanilla-one, the customized main install, a golden-wing version etc. - and i do want to manage my flightplan with the same tool :-).

thx for the response
sinzov

[gadgets]

AIFP doesn't interact directly very much with FlightSim. About the only time AIFP actually "cares" where FlightSim is located is when you collect airports - an infrequent-to-never occurence - or when you are building/editing aircraft lists using installed aircraft. In the latter case, if you have identical complements of AI aircraft on each install, it shouldn't matter which FlightSim version you use.

So, generally, other than having to copy compiled traffic files to multiple FS folders (or re-compiling for each installation), multiple Flightsim installs should be transparent.

Don

[sinzov]

Hi,
thx for the answer.

the problem is:
1 - you can edit die planner's "ini-"file and point to a different installation of the simulator, but this is in vain. the planner returns to the baisc fs-install (via the registry ?) and does not take any care of your change.

2 - i run a "modern" fs-installation and a 2nd "golden wing" fs-install. obviously these two do NOT share the same aircraft (or airports). i could never build an aircraft-list with my "golden"-aircraft. so no flight planning.

there is a lot of tools out which allow the user to determine which install / location is to be used. a similar feature would be easy to do and be very useful fo AIFP too, imho.

cheers
sinzov

[bobbyjack]

Don

You know that I use the "Collect Airports" feature all the time, so I have to pipe in...

sinzov

Since you have multiple installs of FS, (not sure how you do that) why not have matching installs of AIFP? Might take a little doing, but why not. Have each version of AIFP collect the airports for it's own FS install.

BTW it is possible to setup multiple FSX exe files that start with different planes, but point to the same installation. Might not work with your gold wing which sounds like it is set in airports in the past. Just a thought.

Bob

[sinzov]

Hi Bob,

i run "golden wings" by Bill Lyons since 3 years, featuring the 1930ies. i cannot remember how the installation worked, but it does, though 1 of them is marked as the default in the registry.

unfortunately AIFP does look into the registry and only serves the airports and aircraft of the default installation ;-(

cheers
sinzov

[gadgets]

As you note, AIFP does give priority to the "default" installation. Giving priority to the last entered version is easily done (swapping two lines of code) and should be transparent to users having only one installation of a given FS version. Once I ensure there are no unexpected side effects , I'll make a new release.

However, for multi-version to work properly, AirportList.dat must include all airports from both systems (that are referenced in flight plans). There's no simple way to do this. AIFP's airport collection routine is designed to scan a single installation. So, if the airports-of-interest complement of both systems is not the same, you'll either have to add the delta by hand or temporarily, move the add-on airport bgls from one system into the other and do a "collect-airports" on the consolidate system.

Don

[gadgets]

sinzov, update posted.

Have fun,
Don

[sinzov]

Hi Don,

many thanks for your answer. and for your work, which is great. AIFP is simply "the best", that's why i want to use it for every install.

cheers
sinzov