Pete Dowson

You don't buy anything "again". you bought FS2004 and FSUIPC3. Now you buy FSX, and it needs a completely re-written program, FSUIPC4. There was no way I could adapt FSUIPC3 to it. Sorry. You can buy an FSUIPC4 Key if you want to, but FSUIPC3 keys don't work with FSUIPC4. They are different programs. Regards Pete

Set Log=DebugAll in both Client and Server. Reproduce problem. Zip up both INI files and Log files together and send them too petedowson@btconnect.com. PEte

Broadcasting (mailshots) aren't working on your system. Maybe it isn't all XP or something else is stoping them. Turn them off in WideServer by setting AdvertiseService=0, and put the ServerName in the client INI file so the clients know where to look. Please don't come back. If you continue with your attitude you will get barred in any case (and not by me, I haven't got the power). You don't need me, I don't need you. And no one needs an insulting ignoramus like you. Pete

Thank you very much for coming here with such constructive advice. If you really believe that just don't buy it and don't use it. You have every opportunity to read that stuff before you get into it, without having to be so insulting and discouraging. It was only because Microsoft persuaded me to stay with it that there even exists any versions for FSX. Personally I've had enough of it all. I'd rather just go fly. At this rate there certainly won't be any more versions for future FS releases, but then I expect folks like you would have done it all better by then. By all means let me see your results when you have achieved any. :-( Pete

Tell me more about what you've done in FSUIPC4 -- it sounds like you have the same axis assigned twice. If you have merely installed FSUIPC4, and not even registered it, it will be doing nothing, so check your FS assignments. Regards Pete

No problems. I won't have that much space, but on my Flying-Only PCs I've always had too much! ;-) Pete

Wow! I can't wait! (Well, I can as I haven't time to fly at present in any case! :-( ) Well, it was only about £3 extra, and it should still mean I get it a couple of days before I would anyway! ;-) Thanks, Pete

Which photo scenery are you using? Did you port the FS9 UK VFR scenery over? If so, does it work well? I ordered the Horizon set for England & Wales as soon as I saw it advertised for sale, and even paid extra for next day delivery, but that was a week or two ago and nothing's arrived yet, so I assume it isn't ready. According to the Ads it is specifically designed for FSX and has much better resolution. Regards Pete

Really? And to the value you expected? If so, could you tell me what weather you started with. Was it downloaded weather or a weather theme, or something else? There's so many compbinations to test I've not been through them all. But I remember getting weird results when trying to apply changes to downloaded weather ... Regards, Pete

Not that I know of. You'd have to go to the Weather menu and re-request downloaded weather. I think it does it there and then. If this is with FS2004 I think you have to go into the weather menu each time and tell it to download weather, but you could try selecting that then saving a new Flight as your defalut. It should work, but I think it doesn't in FS2004 -- it works fine in FSX. Best to get everything ready before you climb into the cockpit, or maybe use ActiveSky or FSMeteo? Regards, Pete

The "ARM" zone can be as large or as small as you like, but get it working in a default aircraft -- more complex aircraft may be interfering with their own control. Sorry, I don't really understand what you are doing or saying there. I cannot even envisage where you are reading these numbers, except for in an out -- the Centre number, where you seem to say you have "1" is merely a default. YOU have to calibrate that for the detente number shown above (#1 to start) -- and there are TWO numbers for centres, not one, it is a RANGE of vlues, not one value! Let's start from a known position. Calibrate your flaps axis just like any other -- don't try detente setting yet. If you already tried things, press "Reset" then "Set". Set your flaps up as "Min", full flaps as "Max". Make sure you leave a little room either end for slight variations. Put the axis back to flaps up, press the "Dt" button. You should see the #0 #1 #2 labels at the top. The entre heading indicates it is ready to set detente #1. Move the lever either side of the first detente and set the "centre range" in the column. Make sure there's enough space either side to cater for variations. Use the scroll buttons above the centre values to move to #2, and so on. Don't worry about the IN and OUT values. All you are concerned with is setting a series of "centre" values, a pair for each detente. Regards Pete

Did you enable changes to FS weather (in the Miscellaneous tab)? They then may have an effect, but weather changes in FSX take timesometimes a long time. And then, the effect you get may not be what you want, and in some cases the results are awful. Even, without FSUIPC4, just doing somethnig simple like selecting a stormy overcast theme after having clear weather doesn't appear to do what you ask, for a long time, and then the clouds seem to appear left, right and rear, but never in front out of the cokcpit view. Very confusing. I've had rain when flying ABOVE all the cloud layers, and rain in a clear area with distant clouds only. And this is with the default weather facilities, no FSUIPC4 at all. Add more unpredictablility because the METAR strings sent to FSX by FSUIPC4 (or other programs) aren't interpreted properly, and it gets very hard to understand what is going on. Just like UK weather, notoriously unpredictable! They need the weather facilities in SimConnect fixing to work properly. They were broken in Beta 3 but MS didn't have time to fix them before the user release was forced on them. I was informed they had the top priority for fixing in the first SimConnect update, whenever that might be (this year I'd hope), but now that there are all these much more severe problems with SimConnect's TCP/IP usage conflicting with so many third party security programs I suspect that the weather fixes may take second place. When they do work as specified they will be better than anything we've had before, but at present the results of trying to write weather data into FSX is rather, er, experimental, as I said. Considering the problems, ActiveSky does an excellent job, and it is probably rather more reliable than trying to modify FS's own weather at present. Regards Pete

Yes, Windows XP does this with ALL EXE and DLL files (and some other types too), since some recent security updates -- very recent too. A bit of a shock. Even I had to seek help to extract and install such files, but once you know you won't forget: You need to "unblock" the ZIP (in this case) -- right click on it, select Properties, and then Unblock. This will happen with all downloaded files from now on. It may even apply when copying files from one PC on your own network to another. All part of Microsoft's security improvements to protect you from yourself. I have a feeling that in Vista you'll need to ask your own permission to do anything at all! Regards Pete

It is known. There are at least two other threads here about it. I was supplying an interim fix (4.021) but now I am up to 4.022 and I'll post that up in the FSX bits and bobs announcement above, later today. Please download that and install it and you'll be fine. Sorry for the inconvenience. Pete

Ah. I think you needn't look any further. The chaps at TRC in their wisdom have checked the version of FS in their driver and decided you aren't allowed to use it in FSX. It would be but a moment's work for them to make the small change needed to remove such an unnecessary check. Maybe it is there for a reason? Maybe they want to charge more for FSX use of their gauges? I don't know, but if I were you I would ask them. Regards Pete

If their driver doesn't work at all with FSUIPC4 then it sounds like they are doing something like checking the FS version and simply not working when they see it isn't FS9. Enable IPC Read and Write logging in FSUIPC4 and run the TRC driver. Let me see the FSUIPC4.Log file and we'll see what they are doing. Pete

Do you mean me, Peter Dowson (not Dawson)? If so, then I've never done any drivers for any Simkits. They interface to FSUIPC -- they probably mean the FSUIPC Beta for FSX Beta, but FSX was released over a week ago and FSUIPC4 (non-beta) was released at the same time. Regards Pete Dowson

Do you get a proper crash information dialogue, with the option to send it to Microsoft? If so, please do so. If not please report this via the tell_fs@microsoft.com email. Give them as much detail of your video hardware, drivers and settings as possible please. Then try other drivers, later ones if possible. FSUIPC4 isn't actually doing the switch you see from FSX's normal display to the black background, on which my program then draws the option dialogue. That's actually a function of SimConnect's facilities to allow dialogues to be displayed in full screen mode. It sounds as if there's a conflict with the particular video settings, card or drivers on your system. We need to get information on all these sorts of bugs to Microsoft in the hope they'll fix them soon. This is, so far, the only report I've seen of this particular bug so your information is even more vital. Until Microsoft can find a solution then I think we will have to look at work-arounds. One of them is to go into Windowed mode, as you've found. On one of my systems I have to use Windowed mode for all flights (with or without any add-ons like FSUIPC4) because otherwise after about 5 minutes of flying or less FSX zaps itself irrecoverably into the Task Bar and won't come out again. I've not got to the bottom of that yet, still trying things. If everything else is okay at present and you can use the Windowed mode on the few occasions you need to go to FSUIPC options, then I should carry on that way. Otherwise you could try different drivers and different settings (i.e. different anti-aliassing levels, filtering, etc -- options in FSX as well as in the video drivers). There may well be a good combination which doesn't cause the crash. Regards Pete

Okay, so FSUIPC4 definitely hasn't run. There won't be a log file just because you install. Did you also run FSX? FSUIPC4 makes the Log file when it is started, and it records the menu addition (at least since version 4.02). Please confirm you did actually run FSX after installing FSUIPC4? There's no FSUIPC4 entry there, which is why it isn't loading. However, there is also no FSCopilot entry there, so FSCopilot can't be loading eithereither that or you are looking in the wrong folder. There's nothing in that DLL.XML file that's any use to you at all UNLESS you have installed the FSX SDK and need to use any of the SDK tools this runs. Please either delete it or rename it ("olddll.xml" say) then try installing FSUIPC4 again. If you don't see a new DLL.XML file then I think you are looking in the wrong place. Please tell me the path in that case. Regards Pete

If the frame rate is too low for too long the auto-restart might be kicking in. But it should keep reconnecting then. Try changing the "RestartTime" parameter in the WideServer.INI to 0 to switch that action off. Whether this is the problem or not can easily be seen in the Server's Log. If it isn't this I'd need to see noth Server and client logs. Regards Pete

Meanwhile I've done assorted tests here. With FSUIPC4.DLL specifically marked 'Read Only' I can get the error, but I cannot specifically mark the modules folder "read only" -- it has a sort of gray tick in the "read only" checkbox, which I can change, but it is always there again afterwards. I've no idea why -- this is new with recent XP securtity updates I think -- but it certainly didn't stop the Installer. So I think your original problem was something else. The pointer in the error message to "read only" is only because that seemed like the most likely reason Windows would stop the Installer overwriting the older file. One other possible reason for it to fail is that the file was in use at the time. Possibly you had terminated FSX and it didn't appear to be running, but something in it hadn't closed. That would prevent the Installer changing the file for sure. You can check for this condition by using Ctrl_Alt_Del and looking for "FSX.EXE" in the Process list. If you find it, terminate it (button bottom right). That sort of thing happened sometimes with FS9 -- certain add-ons left threads running. In FSUIPC4.022, which I may release for testing or wait and release it as 4.03 tomorrow or Friday, I am reporting the actual error text which Windows provides me. I am also detecting 'Read Only' beforehand and temporarily changing it to allow replacement, then restoring it afterwards. No, that certainly isn't necessary for attribute changing. It would fix an FSX.EXE still running condition though. Regards, Pete

The FSUIPC4.LOG file in the FSX Modules folder. It sounds like FSUIPC4 isn't being run. There may be no LOG file there -- proof positive. Did you install FSCopilot after FSUIPC4? Would you know if you or it copied a file called "DLL.XML" into the same folder where FSX.CFG is? If so then the install of FSCopilot has overwritten the install data for FSUIPC4 -- that's very naughty of it if so. Let me know so I can write to the authors. To recover, re-install FSUIPC4. The FSUIPC4 installer ADDS itself to the DLL.XML file, it doesn't replace the file, so it retains any other installed DLLs. Pete

All of the changes in FSUIPC have always been published in the History document. For FSX this is iinstalled for you when you install the update. For advanced information see the appropriate Announcement above -- the one about FSX stuff tells you about the changes from 4.01 to 4.02. Pete

I've checked tihs, and it is still as I thought in FS2004. As far as I can tell the code in FSUIPC is correct. I tested writes to 0C3E with the Cessna loaded, and using only FSInterrogate. All the writes had the desired effect, directly and with no problem. Certainly no alternating of values as we see in the log you sent. Please check it yourself using FSInterrogate. In order to take this further, if you should still think it is not your program, please supply the log with not just the monitoring but also the IPC reads and writes, so I can see what you are doing in FSUIPC. Regards Pete

Good. Thanks for letting me know. Meanwhile I have streamlined a few internal parts of FSUIPC4, I hope without messing anything up. It may or may not help a little -- here, where I had about a 15% drop using FSUIPC4 I get hardly any difference, just slightly more variation. After some more testing I'll probably release it as 4.03, certainly this week, maybe before the weekend this time. I know MS are working on it, at least to find the more serious problems like lack of Add-Ons menu and so on. I hope they will be able to address the perfomance issues too, but I won't be holding my breath on that! Regards Pete