Help Needed - Win7 and FS9

[allardjd 1,853]

Worthy Flight Simmers,

 

A very good on-line friend has been going through some hard times, computer-wise.

 

His old reliable XP system suffered a pair of catastrophic hardware casualties and needed to be replaced. He's bought a new PC with good specs, running Windows 7. Fortunately the old hard drive was intact and has been installed in the new computer as a non-primary drive, so much/all of his old stuff is intact there. The new system is set up as a Win7-32 bit machine.

 

Like me, he's clung to FS9 and has been trying to get it working on the new system. Between the learning curve of Windows 7 itself (remember he's coming from XP without having experienced Vista) and the difficulties associated with getting FS9 and other FS related things running correctly on the new PC, he's having a tough time.

 

FS9 runs but there are quite a few issues with hardware (CH Yoke, Saitek pedals, Nostromo x52 game pad) and add-on software (including the vital FSUIPC) not displaying or displaying but behaving improperly. One particular issue is that aircraft brakes are not operating correctly across the board - all AC types from payware to freeware to default FS aircraft are affected.

 

Part of the reason for sticking with FS9, quite aside from "comfort zone" issues, is the sheer cost of replicating in FSX all the payware things that he (and I - my day is coming) have accumulated over the years. Despite the superior capability of FSX, buying the add-ons to get back to the same set of capabilities and features would not be small change.

 

It may be that we're beating a dead horse here and that FSX is the only answer. I hope not. I'd like to help him through this but haven't had much to offer so far.

 

So here's the question...

 

Has anyone here successfully run FS9 on a Win7 system, or do you know of an on-line source where such information is available.

 

I'd really appreciate any light anyone can shed on this.

 

Thanks,

 

John

[rob16584 42]

John, as far as I know everything should work fine on w7.

I had some emails from the PC Pilot team who were running FS9 and FSX without any problems at all. Maybe the drivers for the hardware need updating?

[allardjd 1,853]

Rob,

The Nostromo doesn't work at all and is very likely a driver problem, but no new one is available, at least not yet.

For the CH Yoke and the Saitek pedals, the problems are mainly related to brakes, and as noted, those are universal across all AC whether using keyboard or any of the hardware peripherals, so probably are not driver issues. That seems more like a native FS9 compatibility issue.

We're keeping an open mind on all of this...

The primary alternatives in order of preference are...

Fix FS9 on Win 7

Go to XP on the new machine

Go to FSX

John

[mutley 4,487]

Hi John,

You really shouldn't have a problem wit Win7 however I would suggest a re-install of FS9 and all the hardware with the most up-to-date drivers.

When installing older software, there are a couple of options when installing from .exe files you can try,

1. Right click the exe file, select properties, click the compatibility tab, check the option "Run this program in compatibility mode for" and select "Windows XP service pack (whatever SP you are on 2or3)

2. (Which is always advisable to do) is right click the .exe file and choose "run as Administrator" that ensures the correct permissions and placement of files take place.

At the end of the day, I would upgrade to FSX, a lot of the FS9 aircraft will port over and the scenery is so much better anyway you probably wouldn't want to use the old stuff.

Hopefully some food for thought what really needs to happen is for you to upgrade to W7 John then you will be able to advise us :blush:

Cheers

[allardjd 1,853]

Mut,

 

Thanks. That's probably the most cocise, clear advice yet received for installation options.

 

Please note that in this case, I'm not the victim, at least not just yet. I'm trying to help my friend through this at long distance and with even less Win7 knowledge than he has. I don't think we'll be able to convince him to go to FSX.

 

John

[mutley 4,487]

Mut,

Thanks. That's probably the most cocise, clear advice yet received for installation options.

Please note that in this case, I'm not the victim, at least not just yet. I'm trying to help my friend through this at long distance and with even less Win7 knowledge than he has. I don't think we'll be able to convince him to go to FSX.

John

Hi John,

I have just mailed your friend and copied you in, there is a bit more help in there I hope :blush:

[wdibert 0]

Just some additional comments on this subject.

Remember to always run the program by right clicking and running as Administrator even when you are running as the administrator on the machine.

There may be an issue with re-draw rates when operating not in full view mode. If that is the case you will always have to run in full view mode. No settings in the video card will help, at least none that I have been able to find.

Running two monitors may be a challenge. Especially if different size monitors. It will take much testing to get them to be able to switch between monitors and sync up.

Updating drivers may help but not always. Forcefeedback yokes if not specifically made for Win 7 may not work. Even when using Vista drivers. The inputs work but the force feed back won't.

Lastly, unfortunately when new a "OS" is written one can conform but they are usually written for the new standards of the day and manufactures write code to utilize the best of it. With that said in the end you may find it better to purchase a new machine to get he best optimization. Yes, I would wait till I couldn't take all the error issues or just not running the way you want it to.

[garfox0 0]

I am running FS9 on an old Acer upgraded from Vista to Windows 7. No special hardware installed. Aircraft brakes are fine. No problems noticed except I cannot get bgl compiler to create a file to create new waypoints. Otherwise FS9 doing great.

[allardjd 1,853]

This is a really old thread. My friend got his straightened out eventually, with some local help. Part of it was reinstalling Win7 as 64 bit, but lots more was done too. He's not local (closer to you than to me) so I was never hands on with his installation.

 

What's going on with the Waypoints? I wrote the article on that here but haven't used it since I've been on Win7 and the new machine. Are you getting an error message when you compile? There is a way to do this in a command window so you can see all the error messages as they scroll by. Often that will point you to an offending line in the XML file. If you just do a drag and drop on Windows it the command window goes away too fast to see anything.

 

As it happens I'm getting interested in doing that in FSX and was going to dig into it this week to see if it works the same way it did in FS9.

 

John

[garfox0 0]

Hello John, I am total noob here to all this FS stuff. Never found resolution to my problem - but did find a workaround.

Running compiler helper showed parse complete but bgl compiler never generated a bgl file (anywhere on the computer).

I discovered Scruffyducks Xml2Bgl utility and when used with the BGL compiler - it did generate the bgl file needed.

I am on old acer laptop , win 7 32 bit. Have not tried it on the wife's HP win 7 64 bit as yet.

I do have to run this as admin to get it to work. From what I have discovered your using this on FSX should work ok as others have reported successes.

I really appreciate your original work on this as I know nothing of xml.

Thanks, Garland

[allardjd 1,853]

Keep in mind that the bgl, once generated is completely portable, i.e. the compiling can be done on another machine and if successful the bgl file can be moved to FS on a different machine. If BGLComp works OK on the machine of your wife or a friend, theres no harm in compiling there and moving the bgl, as long as the compiler is the right version. As far as I know, there's only one version of BGLComp for FS9 but for FSX there are several and the version of BGLComp must match up with the SP level of FSX.

 

I don't know all that much about XML either, but I can copy and paste with the best of them.

 

John

[garfox0 0]

I understand your meaning - I tried the compile on the wife's HP win7 64bit with same result- using bgcompiler would run but not produce a bgl file to be found. (Wife really doesn't think much of me playing FS on her puter anyhow)

[garfox0 0]

I understand your meaning - I tried the compile on the wife's HP win7 64bit with same result- using bgcompiler would run but not produce a bgl file to be found. (Wife really doesn't think much of me playing FS on her puter anyhow)

[garfox0 0]

oops double post - i gotta quit hittin th wrong buttons (senility haha)

Any who thanks for the help. I gotta go figure out some more ways to mess up on the xml

Thanks,

Garland

[allardjd 1,853]

If you'll send me your XML file I'll see if I can compile it or figure out why it won't.

 

John

[garfox0 0]

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
-<FSData xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="bglcomp.xsd" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" version="9.0"> <Waypoint waypointIdent="FOXY" waypointRegion="K4" magvar="-5.6" waypointType="NAMED" lon="-99.79575277" lat="32.44662777"> </Waypoint> </FSData>
[/CODE]

Here it is: Works using Xml2Bgl giving a usable bgl file.

Otherwise it parses ok but fails to return a bgl file at all.

I just copied the file here as it is short and I haven't found attachment option.

Thanks,

Garland