Moving FS2004....

[Alonso]

Hello everybody....

I'm running out of space in my C: drive.

I was wondering if it was possible to move FS9 completely to another hard drive on the same PC? I mean without having to reinstall every single add-on!!! :-/

And another question I have...
At the moment I have FS9 installed in the same drive as Windows.
Will moving to another drive slow down FS9?

Thanks in advanced

[ashaman]

It is possible to move it. I've done it. Everything I installed worked perfectly once on the new path. Though...


...though I spent a whole evening redirecting ALL the calls to the old FS9 path to the new in the windows registry.


[glow=yellow,2,300]WARNING[/glow]: the edit of the registry is something you should do if (like me) you know where you put your hands and why ONLY. If you do not know how to handle the registry and put your hands there, [glow=yellow,2,300]I won't take responsibility of any problems you might encounter[/glow].


Right after I did it, a forum goer hereabout said there was and gave the link for a program that allowed to do automatically what I did by hand sweating blood. I am unable to convey ho much far from amused I was.


Sadly I did not take note of that link, nor remember the name of the program. Maybe someone still knows. Hope he'll tell you (this given that that person is not by now a desperate of the "the cross" forum).


PS
Once brought on the new drive, FS9 will be as fast as before (and if the new HD is faster than the old, even faster as well). Don't worry.

[Alonso]

Thanks for the reply Ashaman.

I may be doing it in a week or so... as I have exams this week. I just can't believe that my FS9 folder is 24gb (after a "cleanup")

What is the exact job that must be done in the registry? is there any site where it's explained?

Thanks  ;)

[dave3cu]

Flight1.com has a freeware FS9 Registry Repair Tool. Don't know if this is what Ashaman was referring to.

Dave

[ashaman]

Thanks for the reply Ashaman.

I may be doing it in a week or so... as I have exams this week. I just can't believe that my FS9 folder is 24gb (after a "cleanup")

What is the exact job that must be done in the registry? is there any site where it's explained?

Thanks  ;)

How I did it:

I copied the whole FS9 folder to the new destination. [glow=yellow,2,300]NOT MOVED, copied.[/glow]

Entered the regedit and began doggedly searching (with the search function) all and every call to the old FS9 path and redirecting it to the new copied one (only this part took away about 4 hours of attentive handy work).

Once finished, ran a last control all over the registry to see if I had forgot something.

Having found no discrepancy, went in the new FS9 folder (still having the old folder not yet deleted) and tried starting FS9 from there.

As FS9 worked correctly from the new position (all the add-ons worked correctly too) I deleted the old FS9 folder.

That's all folks.


[glow=yellow,2,300]Warning and Disclaimer:[/glow]
Be VERY wary when editing the registry. One of the things I decided to do when into the registry (to avoid creating problems to my system) was to be completely attentive of what I did and aware of what I changed. This means that when I felt tired (and it happened often, as the maniacal attention needed saps away energy like you won't believe), instead of going onward risking to mistake something, I stopped doing what I was doing and went in the kitchen for a coffee or something, then, once I felt ready again, restarted editing the registry. This was the main reason that four hours of continuous work became a whole afternoon and good part of a evening (then again, I have a lot of complex add-ons installed).

BTW, my PC was and is still secured by an UPS (all my PC's are), so power outage or irregularity would not put me in troubles.

If you decide to follow my example remember that I do not take any responsibility of any error, problem or other disaster may occur on your computer. What I described is a very delicate matter over which I would take responsibility only if it was I who did it. As this is substantially impossible in this case, (let me repeat myself please) I won't take responsibility of any problems may occur.

Sorry for the blunt, hard nosed approach, but in these matters, better be clear from before the start.

[Alonso]

Thanks for the info Ashaman... I'm planning to do that in a few weeks... I know it's not your responsibility if anything happens

[born_2_fly]

Thanks for the info Ashaman... I'm planning to do that in a few weeks... I know it's not your responsibility if anything happens

Alonso, just use the Registry Repair tool tool that Dave mentioned, it saves all the needless hassle of 3+ hours of registry tweaking, and does it in all of about 10 seconds...

I have done it before and it works.  :-?

Alex

[ashaman]

If the registry repair tool really allows it to be done in automatic and well, then it'd be a good idea if you use that (after having read the instructions on "how to").


It'll be a lot less stressful on yourself.

[Alonso]

Great then! thanks for the info guys

[Jon H]

Couldn't you just install FS9 in the new destination using the disks, and then replace it with the old Flight Simulator 9 Folder, overwriting everything?

[ashaman]

Couldn't you just install FS9 in the new destination using the disks, and then replace it with the old Flight Simulator 9 Folder, overwriting everything?

This, though a good idea, doesn't work always at its best. It's good if you don't have any complex payware add-ons, perhaps of the last generation with over-the-net activation. If you have those, it's best to tell the registry you've moved. It'll spare you BAD surprises.

[Alonso]

Well... just to let you know... I bought a Seagate S-ATA 80gb Barracuda...

I moved the FS folder and applied the Registry Repair Tool by Flight1... Then tried it and.... voila! perfect! It even loaded faster and gave +2 to 4 extra FPS The other drive is an IDE one...

Thanks for all the help

[Conan Edogawa]

Right from the beginning I have my Laptop, I installed an extra partition on my hard disc which is only for my FS9.

[Wing Nut]

Save yourself a whole lot of trouble.  Get a little program called 'Application Mover' (HERE) and it will allow you to move any program anywhere.  It's not freeware, but it is EXTREMELY handy.  It does all the registry entries, deletes the old files and updates shortcuts.  Cnet may have a something similar for free, so check there first.  Back up your FS9.cfg first though, as it will need to be rebuilt when you do...

[JBaymore]

[quote]Save yourself a whole lot of trouble.