Classic British Flight Sim

Hi gents

i tried installing FSx yesterday, but had a problem halfway through.....

so i tried to reinstall it, but it wont allow it as it says there is another instance of it installed already......

i have searched all the places i can think, but there is nothing....

would it be a registry edit?

any ideas as to solve this!!

cheers

neil

Yo Neil

If it's saying another instance exists, then yup.. have a dig in the registry and delete every key you can find related to FSX.

Btw.. if at all possible, DON'T install it on the same drive as any FS9 load. While the two will co-exist, problems occur when you try and remove one or t'other ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

cheers for that

ok ok...so grown men do cry!!!! :@ :@ :-( :-( HELP HELP HELP

any ideas for me to try, where is the registry file? my god i have searched everything....deleted everything and still get the same...already installed message... STUPID

Hello mate..

This can be a dangerous exercise if you don't know what you're doing mate. Look on your C: drive and click on the Windows directory. The file you're looking for is called Regedit.exe. Double click that and you're into no mans land :o

Look for the directory HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.. and open it.
Then in that directory look for SOFTWARE and open that.
Look down the list until you see Microsoft then open that.
Go further down the Microsoft folder until you see Windows and open that.
A folder near the top (it may be the top) is called CurrentVersion.. open that.
Look next (and finally) for a folder UNINSTALL and open that. Look down the list for FSX.

IF FSX has parked it's butt onto your hard drive, then you will see a key for it here. Highlight the key (right click) then delete. You'll probably be asked if you're sure and it's up to you if you say yes or no!

Just looking in the registry does no harm to windows at all. The dangerous bit is deleting keys so if you're really not sure and don't want to risk it.. then leave well alone. There may be other bits left over but this will be the main FSX key and is what the pc is seeing when you try to load it.

All this of course assumes you're using WinXP. If you're on Vista, you're on your own

EDIT..
Another option might be to put the FSX disc in and see if 'Uninstall' is available. Just a thought ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

Hi Neil

If you're not too confident in making changes in the registry, you can use a registry cleaner programme. I use and highly recommend the freeware 'CCleaner', which can be found at

http://www.ccleaner.com/

CCleaner give you the option to make a backup prior to cleaning.
The programme is also useful for deleting temp internet files and also has the facility of determing which programmes load at startup.

Just a note on FS9 and FSX on the same drive. I have this, and have uninstalled and reinstalled FSX (including patches and accelaration) several times, without any problems.

Hope this helps.

Kevin

I have a similar problem and no cleaning of the registry (registry mechanic) will help. My FSX install and un-install tells me that the 'patch' may not be a valid patch and I should check this with my vendor, which is less than helpful. I have just given up on FSX as I did not want to ruin my huge and stable FS9 install.

Hi Chaps,

You may have hit a snag. Some older programes will put entries in the registry as described, but most modern ones also place things called GUID's in the registry which reference the programs, these GUID are long hexidecimal stings of Characters which aren't obviously related to the program you are trying to unimstall.

I'll see if I can dig out some info for you.

What opperating system are you running (and service pack version) as the registry is different between Vista and the different versions of XP.

im running xp sp2, tried earlier to install fsx deluxe, got it in then sp1 for it, i then tried sp 2 and thats when things went wrong.

i uninstalled fs x, then tried to install fsx normal, when the disc auto starts is says.."attempting to upgrade fsx"
then it says, "a newer version is already installed" then the install closes down.

i have tried all kinds now.... :brick: :brick: :brick:

cheers

neil

Hi Ben..

Is SP2 cumulative or will it only install with SP1 present?? I had SP1 and installed SP2 without a problem but others have reported issues with it. We bought Lee FSX'A' for Christmas and he had to uninstall SP2 before it'd load (SP2 being part of the package). I know that's different but it does show that FSX likes things 'in order'.

ATB

DaveB :tab: