Simviation Forums

Hey everyone!  A few months ago, we all talked about the survey that was supposedly sent out by MS to gather information regarding the next release of MSFS.

Now today I've gotten this email in my inbox...I'm reluctant to  do anything that involves installing mysterious software on my system.  Anyone else get it?  What are your thoughts?

[quote] Our goal with this study is to see how our customers use Flight Simulator 2004 at home. The files we provide record what aircraft you use most often, which flights you fly, what features you use, etc. It lets us see what our customers actually  do  when they are flying. We can take what we learn from all of you and craft a Flight Simulator that is attuned to how our community really uses our product.



If you elect to proceed with this study, follow the steps below to download and run the FSLog.msi file. The FSLog.msi file will install two items on your computer.



The first item is a program called Watson, this program will take the data that is recorded while you use Flight Simulator 2004 and automatically send it to our servers so we can see what you did in that session of Flight Simulator. This requires a broadband connection. You also need to be running one of the following versions of Windows on your computer; Windows 2000, Windows XP Home or Windows XP Professional.  



The second item that will be installed is a file called FSLog.dll. FSLog.dll will record everything you do inside Flight Simulator 2004 and temporarily put it in a log file. The first time you run Flight Simulator 2004 after installing the file, FSLog.dll will run a program called DXDiag (already part of the Windows operating system), which provides data on your processor speed, your video card, the amount of RAM you have, etc.



This will only record information from Flight Simulator sessions; nothing else you do on your computer can be recorded. Every time you exit out of Flight Simulator, Watson will send this temporary log file to us. After you finish using a Flight Simulator session, a four question survey will appear that we

I think I got that a while ago. Nothing new today. I Think MS is still sending them out because so many people took it.

I would treat it as highly suspicious...!!

Why would Microsoft have your E-Mail address...?

An excellent way of someone Phishing data from your computer after you have installed the program/attachment...?

Microsoft don't ever contact you directly....you always have to contact them...!

Sounds very dodgy to me...

Suspicious Paul... ... ...!

...actually, the more I read the details, the more concerned I get....

"...don't forget to include your credit card details, and your password details, and anything else which will enable us to clear out your bank account...
...thank-you..."
Wowzers... ...!

they better get to work if they want this thing out by christmas.

They never said it would be out by Christmas. Look in the ACoF section.

Yeah, I didn't plan on installing it either, I was more just looking for everyone's thoughts on the subject and giving a head's up for anyone else who may have gotten the email.  lol

Thanks for the replies, gang!  (And I agree, Paul.  lol)

Now that my computer is back online [no more stupid public PC's], I now know what to look out for.

Thanks for the warning.

The one thing I think is kind of dodgy is how they give you the link that is just an ip address with an extension at the end basically, I know some places do it this way, but microsoft really outta be able to do better than that.....

Never mind me, I'm just jealous because I haven't got that e-mail yet..

never mind, just got it like right after I hit the reply button...

Downloaded the file from microsoft.com, file is supposedly published by microsoft.com...

I've got backups of all of my files, so I guess I'll just go for it....

This might be of interest. It's from the Flight Simulator official site, the insider section, and talks about the surveys, people chosen, user ID's etc.

http://www.microsoft.com/games/flightsi ... survey.asp