add on managers

[sonic]

I have only been doing this for a little while and already accumalted quit a bit of stuff do you all use add on mgrs. If so whats a good one.

[WebbPA]

We don't need no stinkin' addon managers.

Seriously, you will be much better off manually adding aircraft and stuff.  Addon managers have an annoying tendency to overwrite files (especially gauges) and you will be back here asking how to get your original gauges back.

Here's a good tute on installing aircraft http://www.simviation.com/acinstall.htm - a little dated because FS2004 will let you install gauges into the panel folder (a more seasoned FS04 user will come along and explain this better) but it will work.

PS - To answer your original question, there is no such thing as a good addon manager.

[garymbuska]

I for one do not and will not use them. If you go about it the right way you can do it your self. I have made several folders outside of FS I use those folders to download and unzip files into I gave them all menainfull names such as HANGER for aircraft TEMPSCENERY for scenery and TESTING for other types of files like effects or sound files. By doing this you know where everything is. Once I am satisfied that the file is ok I move it into FS then delete all but the zip file I have a extra hard drive that I put that on in case I need to reinstall it later.

[legoalex2000]

just open up 2 windows, and throw the aircraft into the aircraft folder. the gauges thing, that never worked for me, i always had to throw it inot the gauges folder.

*flizz pop*

[Hagar]

the gauges thing, that never worked for me, i always had to throw it inot the gauges folder.

In FS9 only,  gauges will work just as well if pasted into the panel folder of the individual aircraft as in the FS9\Gauges folder. I check out a lot of aircraft for other people & find this a convenient method for testing an aircraft & panel I might not want to use myself. If it I like it & decide to keep it I transfer the gauges to FS9\Gauges. This method  prevents the folder being jammed with gauges I will never need.

As for install managers I've not tried one for a long time. These might be fine for managing your addons once they're correctly installed. I suggest you learn to install them manually first. This is not difficult & probably just as quick, if not quicker than any utility. I could probably install 10 aircraft manually in the time it takes to figure out how the utility works. It's also much easier to troubleshoot if anything goes wrong.

[MattNW]

Gotta agree with the others about FlightSim Manager. It's a really nice little program. That said however you do need to learn how to install things manually. Although I like FlightSim Manger I still do all my aircraft and scenery installs by hand just to know what is happening. FSM however makes a dandy backup tool. It can find an airplane and it's files and effects guages and package those into a .zip file. It also has a lot of other functions but I'd still install by hand first.

[Chris E]

yeah, flight sim manager has a scanner that scans for unused guages, unused scenery, unused textures as well as for faulty aircraft, if the zip you tell it to install is missing a file it will alert you for what file and will allow you to either manually search for it or choose another, or else just skip that guage and ignore it, it really will give you full control no matter how little you do

[rmac]

How come some people are so hot under the collar for add on managers?.
I use Addit Pro and sure I paid to register and have been using  it for last 3 months with great sucess on aircraft and all add ons if the file does not load about 1% of the time I abort. So I  now have a simple and easy way to load aircraft and utilities.

[Hagar]

The main reason I don't like addon managers is that they work by overwriting files/folders. Depending on the way the author configured the files before uploading them

[Chris E]

yeah, the manager i use will ask if they find 2 files with the same name and will ask if yoiu want to not install it or backup and overwrite, so it keeps a backup, and i personally have a backup of the original without anything on it, and save my zips of planes and have had to reset it a few times when i manually installed and messed it up, sounds a lot like me, messing it up, but yeah, it doesnt do anything damaging without you saying to damage it, haha

[Hagar]

It's all a matter of preference. From what I've read here & elsewhere, people still have failures using these addon managers. Knowing how some files are configured this doesn't surprise me as no utility could possibly figure them out. That's fine if you're prepared to put up with a certain amount of failures but you're never likely to be able to fix what might be a very simple problem. You're not likely to understand how it all works or progress into the development side of the hobby like creating your own panels, scenery or aircraft.  If you're happy with it by all means use it.

[MattNW]

How come some people are so hot under the collar for add on managers?.

Simple. When I install by hand I know where I put everything and I know what files, if any that were overwritten. I also know where everything that I overwrote is backed up to and if there's any problems I usually have a good idea what caused them and how to fix them. I've taken aircraft and scenery files that others thought were unusable and made them work OK mainly because I have a good idea from my experience installing aircraft and scenery by hand, what might have gone wrong.

Example: I've downloaded some sceneries where some of the textures must be in the main Fs9 "textures" folder and not in the "textures" folder within the add on scenery (don't ask why, they just have to be there). I installed the scenery (which was done by simply dragging the folder and dropping into my "Addon Scenery" folder) and noticed a building roof texture was missing (just a grey roof in the sim). I checked the scenery's "textures" folder and BldgRoof.bmp was there and wasn't corrupted so I dragged that over into the Fs9 "textures" folder and when I ran the sim everything was textured just as it was supposed to be.

No add on manager can detect this requirement. In fact I haven't seen anyone explain why this happens. By all logic it shouldn't matter but it does on some sceneries. If I had relied only on a manager to install all my sceneries and never learned about the makeup and technicalities of installing scenery by hand I would have just uninstalled the scenery and gave up.

[Chris E]

yeah, i am not very smart when it comes to computers, and made a manual backup with all defaults cause i didnt know how to uninstall aircraft, then i had to reinstall the game, and i can always just pop that over the old FS9 folder if it made mistakes

[sonic]

Got them off the web for you how did you do that.
It said I had like 30 aircraft problems I had just reinstalled and everything was brand new I have no idea on how to correct the problems even if it tells me I have them  :'(

[Chris E]

well, for that it will count any plane with any missing piece with an error, many dont need it, just mainly if it doesnt work in game is when you should get rid of it, cause i usually dont pay attention to it, cause they work in game, they are good enough, lol, just check really for unused guages