FSUIPC Dialog box size problem

[Flyingsub]

Hi, I have just reinstalled FSX and am slowly working my way to restore all of my add-ons. First stop was FSUIPC to set up my CH controllers. But the right hand side of the dialog box has been cropped so I cannot select drop down boxes etc. I have tried dropping down form my default resolution of 3840x1024x32 (Triplehead digital) to 1024x768x32 but it makes no difference. Any ideas to resize the box?

Cheers

Dale

[Flyingsub]

ps using v 4.520

[Pete Dowson]

Hi, I have just reinstalled FSX and am slowly working my way to restore all of my add-ons. First stop was FSUIPC to set up my CH controllers. But the right hand side of the dialog box has been cropped so I cannot select drop down boxes etc. I have tried dropping down form my default resolution of 3840x1024x32 (Triplehead digital) to 1024x768x32 but it makes no difference. Any ideas to resize the box?

It isn't the size of the box that's the problem, but an incompatibility between two parts of Windows -- the part which is in charge of dialog boxes and the COMCTL32.DLL component which manages extra controls to do those tabbed inserts.

FSUIPC itself doesn't set sizes -- in fact it doesn't even attempt to (I wouldn't know how). The whole contraption is specified in terms of character widths only -- and one one such set, not a different set for the container and contents. So there's no user programming control over how it turns out. All the code is just basic Windows dialogue programming using additional controls to get the tabbed parts operating.

I've never found out how this incompatibility arises -- I've had at least 20 different PC systems through here (I have 12 at present) and none have ever had the problem. but I do know that some video drivers appear to install their own copy of COMCTL32.DLL, and that this is sometimes not compatible with the version of Windows installed.

So, there are two things you can try: one is to change the selected Windows font size. How you do that depends on your version of Windows I think. On XP, for instance, you right-click on the desktop, select Properties, then "Appearance". You'll see a Font size selection where you can make it bigger, or maybe smaller. Try changing it and see if that fixes it. Here such changes merely change the whole dialogue size, including the Tabs, so it makes no difference, but Windows 7 users say it does make a difference, and it is even more likely to when the COMCTL32.DLL isn't the official one which came with Windows..

The other thing to try is different video drivers -- possibly the makers have by now discovered their error in replacing COMCTL32.DLL and will fix it. Though there's a possibility, I suppose, that the bad one will remain installed. Possibly running Windows repair could fix it, or trying to find the original DLL on the Windows install disk and re-installing just that. This does get a bit difficult though.

Incidentally, this occurrence isn't all that frequent. It seems to be reported around 2-3 times a year, over the whole lifetime of FSUIPC (that's now coming on towards 10 years). I think all of the previous sufferers have fixed it one way or another, but rarely if ever come back to say how. So please, if you do make progress, come and tell us. And please do mention the version of Windows you are using and, oh, the video card and drivers.

Regards

Pete

[Flyingsub]

Well thanks for the speedy reply, Pete

you were right a simply change of font size fixed it (now set to the defalut medium size:125% from smallest). I am using Windows 7 Ultimate RC1 and latest (but one) ATi catalyst driver

Thanks again

Dale