• Which the release of FS2020 we see an explosition of activity on the forun and of course we are very happy to see this. But having all questions about FS2020 in one forum becomes a bit messy. So therefore we would like to ask you all to use the following guidelines when posting your questions:

    • Tag FS2020 specific questions with the MSFS2020 tag.
    • Questions about making 3D assets can be posted in the 3D asset design forum. Either post them in the subforum of the modelling tool you use or in the general forum if they are general.
    • Questions about aircraft design can be posted in the Aircraft design forum
    • Questions about airport design can be posted in the FS2020 airport design forum. Once airport development tools have been updated for FS2020 you can post tool speciifc questions in the subforums of those tools as well of course.
    • Questions about terrain design can be posted in the FS2020 terrain design forum.
    • Questions about SimConnect can be posted in the SimConnect forum.

    Any other question that is not specific to an aspect of development or tool can be posted in the General chat forum.

    By following these guidelines we make sure that the forums remain easy to read for everybody and also that the right people can find your post to answer it.

Windows 10

robystar said:
Just another small thing I read on the P3D forum when my partner drew my attention to it:

OldAirMail wrote:

>
> "Answer(part 1): If the hardware configuration of your Windows 10 device changes significantly (e.g. motherboard change) Windows may require re-activation on the device. This is the same experience as prior versions of Windows (e.g. Windows 7 and Windows 8.1)."
>
> Fair enough, no problem there.
>
> BUT!
>
> "Answer(part 2): "The free upgrade offer will not apply to activation of Windows 10 in such scenarios where hardware changes reset Activation. "
>
>
> I think that "free" may cost too much in my case.
>
> I'll just pay for windows 10 when I'm ready to switch.
>
>
> Topic Link: http://www.prepar3d.com/forum-5/topic/think-twice-about-prepar3d-windows-10-upgrade/
>
Click to expand...

It is my understanding reading other articles. (I have not read the EULA for windows 10) that the following will apply:

If you upgrade from a retail version, it carries the rights of a retail version.
If you upgrade from a OEM version, it carries the rights of a OEM version.

Full version (Retail):

- Includes transfer rights to another computer.
- Doesn't require a previous qualifying version of Windows.
- Expensive

Upgrade version (Retail):

- Includes transfer rights to another computer.
- require a previous qualifying version of Windows.
- Expensive, but cheaper than full version

OEM :

OEM versions of Windows are identical to Full License Retail versions except for the following:
- OEM versions do not offer any free Microsoft direct support from Microsoft support personnel
- OEM licenses are tied to the very first computer you install and activate it on
- OEM versions allow all hardware upgrades except for an upgrade to a different model motherboard
- OEM versions cannot be used to directly upgrade from an older Windows operating system

What happens if I change my motherboard?

As it pertains to the OEM licenses this will invalidate the Windows 10 upgrade license because it will no longer have a previous base qualifying license which is required for the free upgrade. You will then have to purchase a full retail Windows 10 license. If the base qualifying license (Windows 7 or Windows 8.1) was a full retail version, then yes, you can transfer it.

From the end user license agreement:

15. UPGRADES. To use upgrade software, you must first be licensed for the software that is eligible for the upgrade. Upon upgrade, this agreement takes the place of the agreement for the software you upgraded from. After you upgrade, you may no longer use the software you upgraded from.

17. TRANSFER TO ANOTHER COMPUTER. a. Software Other than Windows Anytime Upgrade. You may transfer the software and install it on another computer for your use. That computer becomes the licensed computer. You may not do so to share this license between computers.

So you should be allowed to transfer your retail version to another computer. Not your OEM version.

So you bought windows 7/8 you get windows 10 free - you get to transfer. You bought a OEM PC - you have the OEM windows 7/8 you get to upgrade to windows 10 on that PC only.

As far as activation - you should be able to reactivate Windows 10 like you did Windows 7/8.

Does someone have some different information?
 
I am still waiting to get a notification that I can download it. But I am satisfied with W7 64 bit as it is. I will try to download it on an external drive and wait till I get sick and tired of W7 and then install it (if still possible by then).
As I am a (albeit late) baby boomer, I still prefer to have a solid OS that has been proven to be stable.
The fact that it is a free upgrade makes me reluctant.
It is not so much to loose a free year but what you have to pay afterwards. How much does W10 cost? I cannot find the price anywhere. I have a laptop with Vista and that one I would like to update but then it says it cannot. And I still do not know the price of W10.
The poster on the P3D forum had it merely confirmed that when you change your motherboard or whatever and have to reinstall W10, it will no longer be free. How much it will cost then it not mentioned.
 
Hello from Windows 10 Pro x64.

Made a whopping 16 GB of space available on my OS partition last night (7 -> 23 GB) by moving stuff around and uninstalling.
Took the plunge today. Picked the option not to carry anything over, i.e. start over fresh. Windows 10's setup gladly allows you to do that.
I was in Win 10 in about an hour or so because I chose to download and install updates (including drivers) during the installation process, which makes the it last a bit longer.
Win 10 takes up about 13 GB disk space. This is surprisingly little.

Anyway, my first order of business was unlocking the administrator account and switching off about anything related to the submission of usage statistics or anything that's not of any use for a desktop system.
If you're using Windows Phone, the look&feel is quite familiar. It's a bit disappointing once you discover the classical stuff like the Control Panel though. Makes it feel like an improved Windows 7 coated in Windows Phone. Meh. Just like its mobile counterpart, the minimalistic design is right down my alley. Screw Win 7s bubbly, glassy BS.

But still, I don't like the start button stuff, so I've installed my trusty shell replacement for the past ten years. BBLean works at the cost of not diaplaying wallpapers. I will take that to the developer though.

As for FSXSE, installing Steam and adding FSXSE's library folder (located on another partition) is enough to make it run. It will install its DirectX9 and VC++ 2005 runtimes automatically and is ideally ready to go then.
FSXSE crashed after installation of the runtimes though and I had to restart it. It then started like it's supposed to with a fresh profile, i.e. creating scenery indexes and creating the shader caches. Starting a flight, however, yields a black loading screen without displaying the loading bar. When trying to access any menu from within the flight, the result is another black screen. I can still quit the menu though and the problem does not occur in windowed mode.
According to the Steam forums, however, this behaviour isn't rare in Windows 10 and googling tells me that it has ocurred for FSX (all editions) in previous Windows versions. Trying any compatibility mode (W7 or 8) for the fsx.exe makes FSXSE crash when launching, but at least the error log displays ntdll.dll as the culprit in every case.
I suppose there are still some runtimes missing. Will investigate further.

Despite FSX acting up, I quite like W10. Let's see how other, FSX related programs will run.



- Edit:

Looks like DWM doesn't like FSX.

If I kill the process, it runs just fine in full screen.

More info:
http://superuser.com/questions/581673/disable-desktop-composition-in-windows-8-force-it

Process Explorer is available here:
https://technet.microsoft.com/de-de/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

This only works when using a different shell. Otherwise you won't have any desktop at all and will have to hard reboot.
 
Last edited:
Hi all.

I see we can get a Windows 10 ISO file using this tool:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Also, after my upgrade, my Windows product key changed from my OEM Windows 7 key... might be good to find that and jot it own. I now have a Windows 10 product key. I use a nirsoft tool called Produkey to gather that info.

Dick
 
Last edited:
Hi from another Win10 computer*. I've experimented some more with my desktop PC since my last post.

1. Get a proper anti virus program. Windows Defender might be okay as basic protection, but it took booting a full FSX install (user aircraft, tons of AI, some sceneries) to ridiculous lengths because its real time scanning algorithm is rather inefficient. After installing my standard Antivirus program (Avira Free), FSX now boots about as fast as on Windows 7.

2. The solution for FSX' full screen issues is running it in windowed borderless mode. Windowed borderless, as far as I know, expands the application window so that the borders are off-screen. There are several tools to do this; all freeware.

1. https://github.com/Codeusa/Borderless-Gaming/releases/tag/8.2
2. http://westechsolutions.net/sites/WindowedBorderlessGaming/home
3. This one is in the Avsim library

I've only tested #1 and #3 and I found the latter to be the better option.

Advantages of the windowed borderless mode:
- Alt+Tab to other windows is fully supported. No more going into windowed mode before being able to do stuff in other tools or folders**.
- An easy solution to the DWM problem
- Tools to achieve this are lightweight and free
- Gauge tooltips will work in DX10 mode

Disadvantage:
- You have to set ForceWindowedVSync=1 in the fsx.cfg to get VSync
- No support for the "1/2 Refresh Rate" tweak from NVidia Inspector. It's FSX' standard VSync behaviour in FSX, which means 60 Hz and lower all the way.
- Framerate might be very slightly lower in windowed mode

Anti-Aliasing and anisotropic filtering modes set in NVidia Inspector are retained in windowed mode.


* My father's previous work laptop. Was about half a year old (or even less) when his employer merged and everyone got new laptops. They didn't collect it, so it sat around with Windows XP (on an i5 machine...brr) and gathered dust. Perfect opportunity to waste a DresmSpark license for Win 8.1 on.

**ALT+Tab'ing out of FSX on Win 7 will basically require you to recall the window from Task Manager or wait a long time before FSX will be redrawn on screen
 
Got a customer who just upgraded to W 10 and know my installer does not locate their FSX directory through the registry. Does he need updates or what is casing this?
 
I've solved the last remaining mystery about my W10 installation. Booting took a ridiculously long time and I suspected a bad installation. Turns out that it must have been Chkdsk or so that still was in the loop. I just waited and let it do its job and everything is a-ok now.
Boot time without "fast boot": 33 seconds. With "fast boot": 10 seconds or so.


delivery guy said:
Got a customer who just upgraded to W 10 and know my installer does not locate their FSX directory through the registry. Does he need updates or what is casing this?
Click to expand...

Probably borked the registry entries during the upgrade, provided that his FSX installation folder is not on the partition shared with Windows.
Have him reset the registry path with the F1 tool:
http://www.flight1.com/view.asp?page=library

(The other registry management tool for FSX doesn't work in W10.)
 
A possible cause of the failed migrations to W10 could be due to rogue shortcut that was installed with our Orbxlibs back in February. In your Start Menu, under ORBX if there is a shortcut call TODO, please delete it. Credit to Ryan at PMDG for finding the cause.

Cheers
Ed
 
I've investigated why FSX does not display any menus in DX9 fullscreen mode.
Turns out that the GDI(?) full screen user interface does not play well with Windows 10's Desktop Window Manager.
If you manage to kill the process (and keep any form of UI alive), FSX works like it did on older Windows versions.

See video here (and read the description):


Killing the DWM is,however, not a feasible solution.


DX10 mode displays the menus, albeit not immeditely.


Just a small h/u in case you guys get e-mails from agonized customers.
 
Like many who have probably read this, my free Win 10 upgrade lurks at the bottom of my desktop just "begging" to be installed over my very happy Win 7 64. I'm afraid to pull the trigger

With almost a week since the last post, wondered if any others would like to comment on their successes of failures (Jon, did you ever even get it to install???). Looking back, Win 7 was a nice improvement over xp for me. Is this truly and upgrade, or primarily an attempt to extend one operating system to multiple platforms. Since my phone and pad are both "i's" that probably won't be so important to me

But FSX, ADE, AI planner, Forest, MCX and a few other here, and GEX, UTX, REX do matter to me. I assume word, PowerPoint and excel came through MS scrutiny pretty well!

Really appreciate the reflection/wisdom/experience of those on this forum

Thanks, Gary
 
No I have not tried again................ However the roll back was flawless in my two (or is it three?) attempts
 
Not sure it helps much, but I upgraded my development computer a few days ago to Windows 10. Went pretty smoothly and my programs seem to run fine (FSX, MCX, etc). Haven't really had issues with it and I find it rather easy to get used to the new UI as well (not a hug change luckily).

Only I don't fly that much in my FSX, so can't comment on certain addons working well or not ;)
 
Upgrading was a bit of a hassle on my laptop (2008 model T61), but now that Win 10 is on there, things run better than ever.

MCX, ADEX and AIFP seem to work so far.
 
Unless you happen to be one of the unfortunates to have received a cumulative update which failed spectacularly by causing the poor sap's computer to enter a Moebius loop of install failure, rollback, reboot, install failure, rollback... rinse and repeat endlessly. :rotfl:
 
Scruffyduck I'm glad you found a work around. I'm going to wait at least 6 months before I even think about upgrading if I ever do.

Ed
 
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