Updating Programs That Rely On Scenery.Cfg File

[c141fe]

As many of us are finding out, add-ons (such as airports) for P3D can be installed anywhere on your computer and P3D locates them by way of xml files.  This is all well and good except these airports are no longer listed in the scenery.cfg file so when you update programs such as FlightSim Commander or AivlaSoft EFB they are missed.  The following is my temporary technique for keeping the programs up to date [hopefully these programs will be updated to handle the new format]

If you have any of the FSdreamteam or Flightbeam sceneries installed then a program called Couatl creates a UNIQUE scenery.cfg for each simulator version you have installed on your computer and saves it in an appropriately named folder at “C:\ProgramData\Virtuali\Couatl\”. 

In my case, I have FSX, P3Dv3 AND P3Dv4 installed, so I have:
  " C:\ProgramData\Virtuali\Couatl\fsx".
  " C:\ProgramData\Virtuali\Couatl\prepar3dv3". 
  " C:\ProgramData\Virtuali\Couatl\prepar3dv4". 

Each folder contains the UNIQUE scenery.cfg file for its respective sim version – DON’T mix them up.

MY TECHNIQUE

1.  I created a folder on the root of C: drive (C:\Simulators\) where I install all my Sim related software
2.  In that folder, I created a folder named "Scenery_cfg" and created folders within in it for v3 and v4 - e.g. "C:\Simulators\Scenery_cfg\Prepar3D v4".
3.  I keep the modified scenery.cfg files that are created in the next step in these folders.


SCENERY.CFG MODIFICATION

1.  Copy the Couatl scenery.cfg file which should be located at C:\ProgramData\Virtuali\Couatl\prepar3dv3 or v4
2.  Paste the file to a place easy to find such as in the folders mentioned in “MY TECHNIQUE”  and open it with Notepad.
3.  For scenery installed outside the root P3D installation folder, you will see entries that look like the following. Notice the “Title=” Entry.

[Area.147]
Title=Area from XML
Local=C:\Simulators\Addon Manager\Flightbeam\KSFOHD\Scenery
Layer=147
Active=TRUE

4.  For each of these entries, remove “\Scenery” from the end of the “Local=” line
5.  Save and close the scenery.cfg file

UPDATING SOFTWARE

FOR FlightSim Commander

1.  Run FSCDbManager
2.  In the left column select the path to your P3D installation folder
3.  In the right column, select the path to the scenery.cfg file that you modified earlier.
4.  Select Update Airports… and FSC should now have the info for all scenery.


FOR AivlaSoft EFB

1.  Run AivlaSoft EFB DataProvider
2.  Select menu Extras | Settings
3.  On the Simulators tab, ensure Lockheed Martin Prepar3D is selected and that the “Installation folder” and “Flight Plan folder” paths are correct.
4.  In the “Scenery.cfg folder” path, point to where the modified scenery.cfg file is located.
5.  The DataProvider will probably restart because of the changes made to settings but this did not update the scenery.
6.  Once DataProvider is running, select menu Data | Simulator scenery data update.
7.  DataProvider will update the scenery and restart. You should now have all your airports up to date.

[virtuali]

Your method is far too painful...

The scenery.cfg in the Couatl folder is generated by the Addon Manager, and it's used only by GSX to keep track of all scenery areas (the sim won't use it) but, since Couatl can use it regardess if the pathnames end up with \scenery or not, we posted an update of the Addon Manager .DLL, which can be obtained with the FSDT Live Update now, so pathnames will not end up with \scenery anymore, so if you fool 3rd party scenery utilities to read from there, instead the default place, it might allow them to work, at least until they will update them to support the new method properly.

Now, if you find that ANY of these utilities will ever corrupt this file, please do not hold us responsible because, if they do, nothing from FSDT will ever work and GSX would stop working everywhere.