General Category > General Discussion
Addon Manager installation locations
virtuali:
--- Quote from: CaptGreg on September 09, 2017, 04:20:23 am ---To tell the truth I don't see a significant profit of the approach because FSDT (and FlightBeam) sceneries are very well-optimized and don't need as much disk space as a global photoscenery or a global mesh. But if many users ask for it - then this is a good Idea.
--- End quote ---
Lots of users asked for this, usually because they have a rather smaller (and fast) SSD drive for the OS, and a larger drive JUST for the addons. Before, they couldn't install our sceneries as they would like to, now they can.
--- Quote ---this is not a good idea - install addons on the system volume. In my humble opinion of course.
--- End quote ---
This is the official, standard, method suggested by Microsoft and used by ANY Windows program out there. But that's besides the point: it's JUST a default, that you can obviously change now.
--- Quote ---My apologizes for the Cyrillic. These are standard warning messages. They say that an error occurred in the scenery.cfg: the scenery folder for the Area.xxx isn't found:
--- End quote ---
In order to "migrate" the paths in the scenery.cfg, it must be changed by the installer, to point to the new paths. However, it's possible that, if your existing scenery.cfg had an error, usually caused by having hand-edited it, the installer couldn't complete.
--- Quote ---I understand. However I didn't found them installed in the folder that I chose.
--- End quote ---
That would be explained by the above theory of a pre-existing corrupted scenery.cfg, which resulted in the installation process not completing, because the scenery to migrate wasn't found or there was a problem processing the old scenery.cfg file.
--- Quote ---Of course you have your own reasons for that approach. However this is not a good Idea - to install any scenery addon on a system volume (where C:\Program Files (x86)\ is
--- End quote ---
As I've said, this is the universal standard for any 32 bit application, but it's just a default (used by every other Windows program out there), which you can obviously change.
And now that you CAN change it, installing UNDER the FSX folder, it's probably an even worse idea than installing into the system volume.
--- Quote ---Just to make sure to avoid any further posts here: should I set the checkbox during a new installation process?
--- End quote ---
Yes, of course. If you don't check anything, it won't install into anything. The checkbox is there so, in case you have several simulators installed, you can choose NOT to install into one of them, should you have any reason to do that.
CaptGreg:
--- Quote from: virtuali on September 11, 2017, 01:04:19 pm ---Lots of users asked for this.
--- End quote ---
Very well, good for them :)
--- Quote from: virtuali on September 11, 2017, 01:04:19 pm ---This is the official, standard, method suggested by Microsoft and used by ANY Windows program out there. But that's besides the point: it's JUST a default, that you can obviously change now.
--- End quote ---
OK. I understood: I'm allowed to change installation folder for a new build of the Addon Manager. But still a question: what must be happened with the previous build of the Addon Manager that has been installed on my system initially? Because as I notice It remains in it's original location \FSF_root_folder\fsdreamteam\couatl\.
Should I remove it before upgrade to the newest build?
Sorry for some ignorance :(
Is there a manual where these aspects are enlightened?
I just have a manual came with a build of March.
--- Quote from: virtuali on September 11, 2017, 01:04:19 pm ---In order to "migrate" the paths in the scenery.cfg, it must be changed by the installer, to point to the new paths. However, it's possible that, if your existing scenery.cfg had an error, usually caused by having hand-edited it, the installer couldn't complete.
--- End quote ---
As I didn't change scenery.cfg manually, these warnings were totally unexpected for me (unpleasant either)
--- Quote from: virtuali on September 11, 2017, 01:04:19 pm ---That would be explained by the above theory of a pre-existing corrupted scenery.cfg
--- End quote ---
.
hardly. I didn't get any errors or warnings before.
To tell the truth I have no wish to reproduce the issue once more. I'm too old for all this staff.. I like flying better than troubleshooting :)
May be You are wright: I did sth wrong.
However I don't see anything wrong:
I installed new scenery, chose a folder for the new build of the addon manager as a subfolder in FSX root. End set the checkbox.
After the installation process had been finished I started FSX and got those warnings.
And further I started troubleshooting where I could do sth wrong.
But initial issue wasn't connect to a "manually-edited-scenery.cfg".
--- Quote from: virtuali on September 11, 2017, 01:04:19 pm ---installing UNDER the FSX folder, it's probably an even worse idea than installing into the system volume.
--- End quote ---
Negative. Using a system volume to install addons has more cons than pros. It's getting harder to perform a system backup. Usually the system volume is pretty small relative to a HDD dedicated to flightsims. And any sceneries (especially - hi-res photo-real sceneries) are too large to be placed in a system volume.
And I never have faced any issue using the FSX folder for any addons installation. Before the last week-end...
--- Quote from: virtuali on September 11, 2017, 01:04:19 pm ---As I've said, this is the universal standard for any 32 bit application, but it's just a default (used by every other Windows program out there), which you can obviously change.
And now that you CAN change it,
--- End quote ---
Very well. It has sense.
--- Quote ---Yes, of course. If you don't check anything, it won't install into anything. The checkbox is there so, in case you have several simulators installed, you can choose NOT to install into one of them, should you have any reason to do that.
--- End quote ---
All right, thank You!
virtuali:
--- Quote from: CaptGreg on September 11, 2017, 10:14:38 pm ---But still a question: what must be happened with the previous build of the Addon Manager that has been installed on my system initially?
--- End quote ---
It will be removed by the new installer, so there's nothing you have to do.
--- Quote ---Because as I notice It remains in it's original location \FSF_root_folder\fsdreamteam\couatl\.
--- End quote ---
It shouldn't. Unless you are referring to a NEW version of the Addon Manager that you installed there, by choosing the same folder used by the old version.
In this case, you won't even be ASKED for a new location on the next install, because the installer (the new one) saves your first choice, and won't allow you to change it at every installation: even if you are now free to install everywhere, the product must still stay together.
If you want to CHANGE the location for an already-installed Addon Manager (one that has been installed with the NEW installer), you must to as follows:
- Uninstall everything from FSDT, and reply YES to the question "Do you want to remove the Addon Manager ?". This will clear up your initial choice, and will allow you to choose a new folder for the next install.
--- Quote ---As I didn't change scenery.cfg manually, these warnings were totally unexpected for me (unpleasant either)
--- End quote ---
Then it seems to indicate your scenery.cfg was already corrupted, so the installer couldn't opened it and update the paths. So, you should have accepted the suggestion from the sim to remove the orphaned areas.
--- Quote ---Negative. Using a system volume to install addons has more cons than pros. It's getting harder to perform a system backup. Usually the system volume is pretty small relative to a HDD dedicated to flightsims. And any sceneries (especially - hi-res photo-real sceneries) are too large to be placed in a system volume.
--- End quote ---
That's precisely what I've said, when I said that, thanks to our new installer, which lets you install everything OUTSIDE the root of the sim, you can achieve precisely what you are saying here.
Before, if you didn't want to "touch" your boot drive with FSX, you were forced to install FSX into a different drive. But what if the 2nd drive was a slower one, for example the very common situation of having 1 fast SSD with the OS and 1 large traditional HDD with the sim ? You were forced to load FSX from the slower drive.
The absolute best solution, for performances, assuming you have a larger and slower 2nd drive, is to:
- Install FSX in the default location under C:\Program Files (x86)
- Install all the addons that allows this in the 2nd drive
This will get the best possible performances, because the sim will start faster AND is loading its default textures landclass/autogen, and library model files (which are used *everywhere*) from the faster drive, while your scenery addons will load from the larger drive that, even if it's not as fast as the main one, won't be so much of a problem, since you are usually loading only one airport at the time.
It obviously makes sense to keep the things that are accessed most often in the fastest drive.
OF COURSE, if both your 1st and 2nd drive are fast SSDs, you can just ignore it, and install anywhere you want.
--- Quote ---And I never have faced any issue using the FSX folder for any addons installation.
--- End quote ---
It depends where FSX is installed into. If FSX *itself* is installed into C:\Program Files (x86), you are going to get issues if just ONE of your addons doesn't fully respect UAC rules, and tries to write into its own folder that, as a sub-folder of C:\Program Files (x86), inherits the more restrictive permissions of it, compared to a folder which was created by the addon installer outside of the sim.
FSX:SE gets away with this, by always running in Admin mode, which is a bit of a trick, and it was made precisely to counter act badly programmed add-ons.
Of course, all our add-ons fully respect UAC, so they never tried to write anything in their own folder, and always used the %APPDATA% folder instead, like any proper UAC-respecting product so, it didn't matter if you installed them inside the sim.
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