Multiple Installs in Windows 7

[T Square]

Anyone have any experience with multipe installs of FS9 in windows 7.

Windows 7 puts the FS9 config file in the users/"usersname"/AppData/Roaming/Microsoft/FS9 file but it only allows one FS9 config will say 4 installs work with one common Config, or is there a way around this .

I have tried copying and renameing each config to match the execute shortcut but that doesn't work either.

I have multiple installs of CFS2 but this doesn't affect them because the Config file remains in the main CFS2 folder.

If the config is setup the same for all wouldn't one config work for all?

[Sunny9850]

I currently have four FS9 installs under W7 but each has their own specific FS9.cfg file same as you would have had under XP.
The main difference between the two OS is the UAC which protects the system files from inadvertent change even by the user himself. I chose to turn that system off completely, others work around it.
Most important under Vista and W7 however seems to be not to let FS install into the default location but rather chose a folder directly on the main drive, such as C:\FS2004.

Cheers
Stefan

[T Square]

Sunny9850

I put mine on a seperate drive altogether so never had any issues with install, maybe, I do one install and just make 4 copies of it. Are you saying I need to do 4 seperate installs from the disc? One other question where do you find UAC and how do you turn it off? That's a new one on me only had W7 a little while though.

[glh]

Sunny9850

I put mine on a seperate drive altogether so never had any issues with install, maybe, I do one install and just make 4 copies of it. Are you saying I need to do 4 seperate installs from the disc? One other question where do you find UAC and how do you turn it off? That's a new one on me only had W7 a little while though.

Here is an article on speeding up Windows 7 -- including the turn off of UAC.

http://www.computingunleashed.com/speed-up-windows-7-ultimate-guide-to.html

You would also probably be interested in generating a batch file to turn off unused services when you are just gaming with FS9. There is an article on that also.

[modelr]

Sunny9850

I put mine on a seperate drive altogether so never had any issues with install, maybe, I do one install and just make 4 copies of it. Are you saying I need to do 4 seperate installs from the disc? One other question where do you find UAC and how do you turn it off? That's a new one on me only had W7 a little while though.

I have 4 different installs on a separate drive, but each has a unique name. You must also give each exe a unique name, as the cfg uses this name. Mine is also not in the "programs" folder, but just in the disk's primary folder. All 4 uniquely named cfgs are in the folder in the app area like you named.

[Sunny9850]

No you don't necessarily have to run the installer, actually you can't run it four times without renaming the resulting folder anyways. The key is to rename the exe file and then run that new exe once.
Since there is no cfg file with that same name in that APP folder FS will create a new cfg file anyways.
One thing you might need in the future is the Flight1 regegistry repair tool, that allows you to simply point the registry to the current FS installation exe location. This is not required to simply run the sim of course....but when for example you want to use EditVoicePack or certain installers the registry must be correct.

Cheers
Stefan

[OBIO]

Here's how I went about setting up my multiple installs:

Install a clean fresh install of FS9. Upgrade it to FS9.1.

Since I have all of my sound packs stored to an external folder, went through all of the stock planes and deleted the sound files and aliased the planes to the proper sound pack in my MOTOR folder.

Dropped in any and all enhancements that I want to use across my installs (Pablo Diaz's HD Clounds V2, Wing_Z's Tree Gen package, replacement runway textures.....that sort of thing).

Then I created folders for each install I wanted: GA Vintage, GA Modern, Military Vintage, Military Modern.

Then I went into the FS9 folder and selected all the included folders and files, copied them and pasted them into each of the new and empty install folders.

Once done with all that, I went into each of the newly created installs and renamed the FS9.exe to reflect what the install is set up to be. GAV for GA Vintage, GAM for GA Modern, MilV for Military Vintage, MilM for Military Modern.

Once the exec files were renamed, I created short cuts to those execs and made sure they were named to reflect the install they were set up to be...again GA Vintage, GA Modern, etc etc etc.

Once the short cuts were created and renamed, I fired each sim up and this created a unique .cfg file for each install under the hidden folder thingie.

From that point, I tweaked each install for resolution, AI density and what not and began cramming them chock full of airplanes.

OBIO