Pete Dowson

The last two only apply to Project Magenta users (which form quite a big part of PFC users) -- one is for the Project Magenta MCP and the other for the CDU/FMS. You can suppress that check screen by a checkbox on the first Option screen. It will only then appear again if the COM port isn't set or isn't available (e.g. it is used by something else, or its driver has failed). You have everything I can possibly offer now, in the previous messages. You still haven't even bothered to check the font size as I asked a long time ago, and there are other suggestions listed in order in my previous messages. Please go and follow those. The final thing, if nothing else works, is Windows and FS re-installation. But try the lesser things first! There's really nothing else I can suggest after those, but why you aren't even bothering to do the simple checks I suggest I cannot understand. It seems as if you completely ignore most of what I write. I am not going to keep repeating it all. Please go back and read them and do them. Regards, Pete

Groan! :-( Each time I send you something it is for you to try! I shouldn't have to send you something and then have you wait until I tell you six times to use it! What's the point of that? We will get nowhere. Please install it. See my other messages. This is going to take months longer unless you actually do something now and then. Pete

It's you that we are trying to help. I cannot make the problem happen and have never seen it except in the three reports I referred you to (over the last two years), and now your own. Unfortunately, if you refer to the other three reports, all I did was suggest COMCTL32.DLL and the sufferers never came back. So I assumed they'd all fixed it. But none actually told us how! In your case, all those versions of COMCTL32.DLL I also have here, and I've tried them all and have not produced the problem. So unless one of them has actually been changed or corrupted without the version number being affected, we've got no further. However, there are still some questions: First, you never told me if you checked your desktop font size and made sure it was set to "normal". Did you do that and forget to tell me? Second, I've been told that Windows "themes" can affect this sort of thing. Can you check, and revert to default Windows settings, no themes, if possible? Third, there are some third party programs, like "Window Blinds", that can mess around with Windows settings, though I've never heard of this being a symptom. See what add-ons you have which may mess with things. Fourth, I am emailing you a COMCTL32.DLL, zipped,. This should be IDENTICAL to one you already have, but it is worth trying as nearly the last resort. If you have already installed the PFC 1.94 I attached earlier, just copy the emailed COMCTL32.DLL into the main FS folder (not the Modules folder) -- that PFC.DLL will pick it up there. Fifth, see if you can roll back to a Windows restore point before this thing started happening. This is by Start-Programs-Accessories-System Tools-System Restore. If you have no suitable restore point saved (unlikely I hope), or even that doesn't do the job, and you've checked all the other things I've just mentioned to no avail, then I can only suggest two steps: re-install Windows, then FS. If I can find any other suggestions in the mean time I will get back to you. Something is corrupt somewhere -- if it isn't in these modules, then it is in Windows settings somehow and re-installation is the only way out that I know of if all else has failed. I know it seems drastic, but you'd be surprised at how many folks religiously re-install every few months as a good way of keeping their system clean and efficient. Regards, Pete

As fast as you can switch processes (because that's what happens every time you call FSUIPC_Process), as long as you don't slow down FS so much you lose the point of such interaction. Each FSUIPC_Process call itself normally takes much less than a millisecond in FSUIPC/FS itself. The rest of the time spent in the FSUIPC_Process call is message queuing, process switching (twice -- to FS and back again) -- plus of course any timeslice that FS uses whilst it has that control you gave it. If you are running on a multi-processor system, or even a Pentium 4 with "hyperthreading", the timeslice bit probably doesn't apply, so you should see a much faster return. HOWEVER, the data you are reading isn't really going to be changing every millisecond, unless you are managing to get FS to run at fantastic frame rates. You should be aiming at matching the frame rate -- and to do that, you could do with FS's frame rate being steady. To get FS to keep a steady frame rate, use its Frame Rate Limiter (Options-Settings-Display-Hardware). Set it to something a bit below the average you normally get. Then time your FSUIPC access cycles to match. e.g. Frame Rate = 20 fps, cycle time = 50 mSecs. Regards Pete

Read the version numbers of all of them please. Pete

surely you cannot be unclear! You already did a search and found several instances of COMCTL32.DLL. All you need to do is run the search again, and this time right-click in the filenames and read the Version data. The search results include the folder details, but it doesn't matter in any case. The search results are in an Explorer window. You don't need to go anywhere else. Just right-click on each one and read the version details, please! Pete

I said: Well, it was difficult to try them all. In Windows 98 very few system programs used COMCTL32, and so after an initial boot, before running anything clever, it was easy enough to change such a DLL in the System folder. In WinXP it seems almost everything uses it, so it is not possible to change it in Windows. It becomes a complex re-booting exercise which I've not figured out yet. So, in order to test the versions of COMCTL32.DLL I have here I have altered PFC.DLL so that it first looks for this library in the FS folder itself. If it finds one there it uses that -- otherwise it allows Windows to decide which to use (normally this will be the one in the System32 folder). I attach this later version of PFC.DLL (1.94) -- you will see there are quite a few changes in it which haven't been formally released yet. Just copy it into your FS Modules folder. Then you can try each of the COMCTL32.DLLs you can find, simply by copying them into your FS folder (the main one, NOT the Modules folder) one at a time, loading FS each time and looking at the PFC menu. But first, let me see the version numbers of each COMCTL32 you have, please. Regards, Pete PFCDLL1940.zip

Okay. Got them. The INI file contains the COM port already, as expected. See: [Connection] Debug=512 Port=COM1 Are you saying it ISN'T COM1? If it isn't, change it in the file. The picture is EXACTLY what I expected if the COMCTL32.DLL is incorrect. Now that is very strange considering that the version you are using is the same as mine. I assume you are using Windows XP SP2? If not, what, please? Did you check the font size as I suggested? I am puzzled that the problem appears to be as if it is using the wrong COMCTL32.DLL. I am wondering if it is picking up one from elsewhere. Did your list account for all possible copies throughout your system? Could there possibly be one in the FS folder? On my most recently installed system, using WinXP SP2, FS2004 9.1 update, and Flight 1 Ultimate traffic installed, I can only find 4 copies of COMCTL32.DLL. The one which I think is being used, in the System32 folder, is the same as the one you have there. But I also notice two others with the same date but different sizes in the "WinSxS" folders -- I suspect the dates are misleading, therefore. Can you check the VERSION number of the one in the System32 folder, please. Right click on it, select Properties, Version. Mine says: "5.82.2900.2180". I also have one with a much later date (11 Mar 2005) which is bigger (904 KB) and has version number: "6.0.2800.1643". The ones in my WinSxS folders (deep down in subfolders) are: "6.9.2600.0" (size 900 KB), and "6.0.2900.2180" (size 1026 KB). These version numbers are rather confusing. i would have thought version 6.xxxx would be later than version 5.xxxx but the fact that the lastand biggest file has the same last 8 digits is disconcerting. I am going to try each of these in turn to see if I can reproduce the symptoms. Meanwhile, could you check your version numbers please? Later ... Regards, Pete

with some aircraft it cannot tell automatically. that's why you can tell it to "always use this quadrant with this aircraft" in the quadrant pages. Load the aircraft, select the quadrant page and check that option. It prompts with a pair of pictures for that. it cannot decide for you unless you pre-select as above. Yes, and once the COM port is written in the PFC.INI file it will never be changed unless you ask it to be changed. This is the point -- how are you managing to loase your PFC.INI settings? Maybe you have set the INI file as 2read only". that is a real no-no. Please check. Right-click the file and select Properties. Look at the bottom. Yes, and yes overwrite. No idea how to do any of that, sorry. And I am not so good thinking and talking at the same time. I need to think then write. It sounds like it was NEVER right the way it was in any case -- the COM port problem especially. Regards, Pete

Not arrived yet, and it is 11:35 am here (British Summer Time). Check you used the correct email address -- petedowson@btconnect.com. Regards, Pete

Yes, so it does indeed sound like a Windows problem. More in a moment. Fine. The PFC.DLL is designed to deal with this smoothly and automatically, either be automatic detection of the aircraft type, or by you "registering" each of your aircraft with a specific quadrant. The latter method is more sure, but either should work provided you've enabled each quadrant you own. That's crazy! Once the correct COM port is set in the PFC.INI file it is NEVER changed again unless you explicitly set it. Even if you unplug the device, the driver will still sit there trying to activate it, forever if need be. The only time it will EVER have to reset the COM deive is when Windows itself says that the device no longer exists! Are you using a real COM port, or a USB port with a driver in Windows making it look like a COM port? If the latter, then it sounds like something is wrong with it. You need to get that fixed. Report this problem to PFC and see if they will send you a better USB serial driver. Honestly, there is absolutely no way PFC.DLL will "lose" you serial port setting unless there's a serious Windows/driver problem like that! Send me that in the Zip when you send a picture. One think, can you please check your Windows fonts size setting. This shouldn't affect the problem at all (larger fonts make all the windows larger, not just some of them), but just in case it may be a good idea to make surte Windows is using the standard font size. To do this: 1. Right-click on the desktop (not on any program) 2. Select "Properties". 3. Select "Appearance" 4. Make sure the "Font size" setting is "Normal". Otherwise change it to "Normal". One other thing you can try. Since it looks as if you have the correct COMCTL32.DLL, possibly something has changed another part of the libraries used. I attach the DLL which I use. Re-boot Windows and before any program is started, place this into your Windows\System32 folder. Regards, Pete MSVCRTDLL.zip

This is the one that matters, and it looks as if it is the same as mine (for Windows XP SP2, correct?). So, that's one theory blasted. Did you ever do as I asked, and look at the FSUIPC options (ALT M F) to see if it had the same problem? Please go and do that now. And then I think the time has come for me to see a picture, as the problem is evidently not the one I thought it was. To do this, please get the problem to happen then hold the ALT key down and press the "Prt Scr" button. This will place a picture in the Clipboard. Close FS and load up the Paint program (one of the installed Microsoft accessories in your Windows) and "paste" the picture to it (there will be a "paste" command in a menu). Save the picture as a Bitmap (BMP) file. ZIP it up and attach it to an email and send it to petedowson@btconnect.com. By the way, if you had your PFC equipment all working once, why are you needing to set basic things up again, like the COM port? All those details are stored in your PFC.INI file. Did you delete it for some reason? You can edit these things in the INI file instead of using the options screen if you are really desparate. But it hasn't been that long. You first posted a message on my Forum on Thursday, remember? I replied within 2 hours of thatwith questions that you've only just started to answer (and haven't finished yet!). Your next message wasn't until Sunday (what happened to Friday and Saturday if it was so important?), and that message was merely a repeat of the first one. It is only early Monday morning here (00:45 am) as I write this, so really all of this stuff has been done in one day -- yet you keep moaning about not flying? Please tell me what happened to your PFC.INI file, from the time when you say "it all worked". Regards, Pete

Just copy it into the FS modules folder, exactly as I said and exactly how it says in the documentation! There is no other way to "update" it nor install it, and that is all there is to it. I shouldn't have to keep saying the same thing. Please just do it. As far as FSUIPC and PFC are concerned there is absolutely nothing stupid you can do! Your problems are almost certainly WINDOWS problems, nothing to do with FS or FSUIPC or PFC or Flight1. However, we will never determine this unless you do something! If you prefer their support then take their advice and ignore me altogether. I can't help you at all if that's how you feel. Otherwise, please just read what I write, answer the questions, follow the steps! Pete

That's okay. Glad you worked it out! Pete

Just to try to be extra helpful, I've searched for the other reports here of what may be a similar problem to yours (though it is still difficult to tell as you don't answer my questions). There have been only three in two years, and they all relate to the FSUIPC options, not the PFC ones. However, both programs use the same Windows facilities for these, which is why I asked you repeatedly to look at FSUIPC too, so we can be sure! Here are links to the other three cases. Please check them. You might find them useful too: http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.php?t=36214 http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.php?t=31998 http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.php?t=29708 I really don't think I can do much more for you now. It is certainly time for you to do something for yourself. Okay? Regards, Pete

But you still never answered. You say something "should be the background", and I don't understand what you mean at all -- what "background" -- your screen wallpaper, your desktop, some part of Flight sim? Why should something be some background? You seem to be stating an opinion there in any case, not describing anything at all. And I still do not know what you mean be "menu mode". this is not a well-defined techincal term. If you meant something by it you should be able to explain what you mean. However, these things could have been made all totally irrelevant if you'd only read the rest of my reply and answered the questions I asked instead of just repeasteating evberything you said again. Well, in that case, rather than say the same thing over and over, just take a look at my questions and suggestions and try to answer them please. Otherwise this will go on forever. I am 50% sure I have already identified your problem and suggested it to you, but you don't take any notice! Regards, Pete

I don't know if I do or not since you never answer my questions, but simply repeat yourself over and over -- three times now you say exactly the same! No progress at all! Some of the things you mention (like about the "menu background" and the "dots" selecting things) make no sense at all to me. If you read my first reply rather more carefully you will see that I did suggest that others have had Windows problems which produce difficulties with tabbed menus before -- the symptom, as I described, being that the tabbed parts (the bits selected by the tabs at the top) are too big for the containing window. I even pointed out which Windows component might be responsible and asked you to check it, as well as check the FSUIPC menu to see if it had the same problem. You have done none of the things I suggested and supplied no other information at all, only repeated what you said to start with, twice now. There are MANY .DLL files in the Modules folder!! That is where most of Flight sim's DLLs go, and it is the ONLY place where PFC.DLL and FSUIPC.DLL should go. You cannot possibly have more than one of any single DLL there as Windows only allows one of each filename! Just never rename any of them! Please just follow the installation instructions. Place the supplied DLLs in the modules folder. That is all there is to it!! You already have the steps. For the last time, the steps to take are (1) install the latest versions, (2) look at the FSUIPC menu and see if it has the same problem (3) see if my description of the insides of the Menu being too big for the containing window agrees with what you see (4) if so then your Windows installation NOT your FS installation, is corrupt. You have a bad "COMCTL32.DLL" file! I have said all this before and I am not going to say it again after this! You are not doing any of the things I am telling you, and you amazingly still refuse to do them! I cannot understand you. I really cannot help if you refuse to be helped. Sorry. Regards, Pete

This is a basic programming misunderstanding. C/C++is not an easy language for a beginner! The reference inGear is NOT a pointer to anything, but represents the value in "inGear". This would be nonsense as a pointer, and the Compiler is doing you a favour by preventing a crash if it let you get away with it! The reason it doesn't fail with an array is that, in C/C++, the name of an array is actually representing the address of its first element -- in other words it is already a pointer. To convert the name of a variable into a pointer to it, in C/C++, you must use the "&" prefix, thus: &inGear This makes it a pointer to an integer. This should work, but you can also then cast it into a pointer to a BYTE: (BYTE *) &inGear Please check some books out of elementary C/C++ to learn more about pointers. It is really important, not only for FSUIPC interfaces but for Windows programming in general. Regards, Pete

Actually 15 fps is pretty normal for me in lots of sceneries with lots of panels. Are you really spoiled by high frame rates? Anyway, it sounds like they've may have programmed something pretty poorly in the Dash panel. It will be one of the gauges, possibly a TCAS? Try eliminating each gauge in turn till you find it. Also, did you check the FSUIPC.LOG file? that may give you a clue. It should show at least one gauge trying to access FSUIPC. Please bear in mind that FSUIPC doesn't actually do anything by itself. If something slows down FS when FSUIPC is there but not otherwise it'll be because of something it is using FSUIPC for. Regards, Pete

Thanks! Probably best send files (Zipped please) and descriptive text to me at petedowson@btconnect.com. I'll work out how to set things up in the "Announcements" or "sticky" departments above Offsets to do what? To select them I think you have to use FS controls. I don't know any obvious way to detect whether they are open, visible, docked or undocked. All that is Windows windows API stuff, which can presumably be sorted using the Windows API. But it gets pretty complex -- I think all of FS's sub-windows use the same Class Mane ("FS98CHILD"). I'm afraid the best you can do is toggle the light as you toggle the view -- i.e. switch on = light on. How do you open them in any case? Isn't the same control to open them used to close them too, so the toggle applies to both switch and LED doesn't it? As with many things in FS, I think you would need to synchronise both switch and LED by using the keyboard on start up. Regards, Pete

Sorry, I really have no idea. I think some of the PM modules close after a period if they are not licensed (by PM) or if they are demos that have expired. But I am not even sure about that. You need to ask such questions of PM support, please. I cannot really undertake to support other folks' programs as well as my own. They keep me busy full time as it is! :wink: Regards, Pete

Sorry, I don't know. FSUIPC doesn't use Directsound at all. That error must be related to something in the DF737, eviudently to do with sound. Maybe there's a wave file missing or corrupt? Regards, Pete

Well, technically no, but you may be lucky and someone who knows about Multiplayer may spot your questions and help. But you may be better off posting elsewhere too -- possibly the FS2004 Forum initially. I don't know if there's any forum specialising in multiplayer, though the main users of that feature would be the on-line flyers using Squawkbox or FSInn. If you are all flying separate aircraft, why can't each fly a different one? At least I'd have thought you'd want a different colour and tail number? Then only the one being flown in each PC needs to be a fully detailed one. The others, with the same 'titles' as the other flyers' aircraft, can be clones of their fully detailed ones but using the less detailed version. Sorry if this is completely off-the-mark. I'm really just guessing here, as I don't know anything about multiplayer -- I don't really understand the difficulty. Regards, Pete

The green transparent window is FS's own window, it isn't produced by my AdvDisplay program. So I'm not at all sure why you are asking this here? What is this text which is scattered all over? Is this from some external program using FSUIPC? Is that why you are here? If you are using some program which produces such text with multiple lines, then you should know that FS itself only started handling multiple lines in that Window since FS2004. Perhaps you are using FS2002 or earlier, and are running a program which uses multiline facilities in my AdvDisplay DLL? If this is the case you will need to enable AdvDisplay (in the Modules menu) and set up its (non-transparent) window. Regards, Pete

i know the PFC menu entry. I wrote the program, remember? There is only ever one version of FSUIPC that is current and supported. It is the only one you can find on http://www.schiratti.com/dowson and the one listed above in the "list of Supported Versions". Currently that is version 3.48. I did tell you this in my last reply. Please read my replies to you more carefully. You are writting a lot of unnecessary words simply because you don't read everything! And I asked you to use 3.48, please reread the reply! You already explained all that at great length. Please READ MY REPLY! Please see if the FSUIPC menu looks the same, as I asked! There is only one version, not a "registered version" and an "unregistered version"!. In any case, you do NOT have to buy more than one copy. You can register the one on your PC with the same data as you registered the one on your laptop! All you have done in this message is repeat at great length exactly what you said in your first message. It is not helping. I went through all your points in my last reply, and you seem to have ignored every single thing I said! Please go back and read the replies. It is absolutely no use this continuing like this, as you are ignoring what I am telling you! Go to http://www.schiratti.com/dowson and get the latest versions there. Please do so. Don't come back until you have (a) downloaded and installed the current versions and (b) read my first reply again and answered the questions there. Otherwise there is no point in continuing. Regards, Pete