Saving stuff...

[Willy]

A few months back I had to wipe my main HD because of a nasty virus I had picked up somewheres. While I managed to back up my FS 1954 install and save it, I lost a ton of development tools that I've only put a scratch in getting them back. I have a small 40g "stash" drive that I was able to save some things on (still looking for the full set of FS9 SDKs that I'd saved).

One of the programs I've been missing is FS Panel Studio. I bought it about 5 years ago and just knew that I had kept the installer and the installation key somewhere. But I haven't been able to find them and had decided to just repurchase it, just hadn't gotten around to it. Seems like that $30 kept having to go to other non-FS things.

While digging around a little bit ago for something else I found them on the stash drive. I'm thinking all right, good to go now. So I started the reinstall process. After I get it to accept the key, it asks me for the last 4 numbers of the card I used to purchase it with. Oops. That old card expired several months ago, but I thought I knew the last 4 numbers on it. Wrong answer. Didn't work for beans. So close, but yet so far...

So, I'm thinking that my wife, Vickie might remember the number. She did better than that. She had put up that old card in a safe place (If it had been me, it would have been in pieces and in the trash). The number I had "remembered" was a couple of digits off and I was able to reinstall FSPS.

It helps to save that old stuff. Now I can fold, bend, spindle and mutilate panels again!

[Trans_23]

Had the same thing happen to me once with a FS related purchase. I think I found the number on the receipt. I bought it online and always save the receipts to a dedicated folder on a backup drive. I would probably lose a paper copy. Good thing your wife saved it. Since you still had the installation key, I wonder if Abacus would have found it in their heart to send you another copy if you didn't have that number in the cupboard.

[Tom Clayton]

Here ya go Willy - I copied the URL's of all of the SDK installers way back when and stuck them into a simple html file with clickable links. I haven't tested the links in a couple of years, but they should still be good as long as MS hasn't pulled anything off their servers.