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Installing The SDKs From The FSX Gold Disks


Jim Robinson

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I recently had the pleasure of reinstalling the FSX SDKs from my FSX Gold disks on Windows 7, and unfortunately ran into some problems while doing so. I found a workaround and eventually got the job done, so I thought I'd post my solution here in the event that others may be encountering the same problems I did.

 

For whatever reason, I am unable to browse the FSX install disks in Windows Explorer, I think this probably has something to do with the copy protection on the disks and possibly also something to do with my cheap DVD drive. Installing the SDKs should be as simple as double-clicking the installers provided on the install DVDs, but if you can't browse the disks, that of course is impossible. I successfully did an MSDOS "dir" on the disks from a command window and located the installers, after which I attempted to run them directly from the install DVDs both from the command window and from the Windows "Run" box with only partial success. Actually the FSX RTM SDK located on FSX disk #1 ran fine, but when I tried to run the SP1a SDK installer located on the Acceleration disk, for some reason the installer hung and would not install. Again I suspect this has something to do with copy protection on the disk.

 

My solution, which ultimately worked, was to copy the installers to a temporary folder on my C:\ drive with a DOS command and run the installers from there. Here's a rundown of my workflow, and I'm not messing around with trying to run any installers from the install disks in this example, I'm just copying all three of them to the temporary folder so I can run each from there:

 

 

 

Put the FSX disk #1 in your DVD drive, cancel out of the FSX install program that autoruns when you insert the disk. In Windows Explorer, make a new folder somewhere on your hard drive, I made one named "C:\Temp" but it really doesn't matter where or what you name it. Right click the new folder while holding the Shift key down and choose "Open command window here", a small black window should appear on screen. Right click the command window and paste the following command, substitute the actual drive letter of your DVD drive for [drive letter], then press "Enter":

 

 

copy [drive letter]:\SDK\*.*

 

 

 

It'll take a few seconds to copy the necessary files, wait patiently while it finishes. Once finished, the command window should report "6 file(s) copied." and return to the prompt ready for your next command. With the copy job complete you should have the six files listed below in your temporary folder. The actual installer, "setup.exe", is dependant on the remaining 5 files although you need not concern yourself with them, just make sure they are there so setup.exe can find them as it needs them.

 

 

Defaul~1.cab

EULA.RTF

Microsoft Flight Simulator X SDK.msi

eula.dll

setup.exe

setup.isn

 

 

 

Remove disk #1 from the DVD drive and put the Acceleration disk in, once again cancel out of the Acceleration installer that autoruns when you insert the disk. You need to get 2 SDK installers from the Acceleration disk, unlike the RTM SDK installer you copied above, these two are both stand-alone installers so you only need to copy two files in this case. Get the SP1a installer first with the following command (paste the command into the command window as you did above):

 

 

copy [drive letter]:\SDK\SP1a\fsx_sdk_sp1a.exe

 

 

When that one finishes copying, go after the Acceleration SDK installer next with the following:

 

 

copy [drive letter]:\SDK\sdk.msi

 

 

 

When finished copying you should have three main installers in your temporary folder, "setup.exe", "fsx_sdk_sp1a.exe", and "sdk.msi". They need to be run in that order. You can now remove the Acceleration disk from the drive and put it away, you're finished with it at this point. Close the command window, you're done with it as well.

 

Run "setup.exe" first and work through the install process. To be on the safe side, run it with right click, "Run as administrator". By default the SDK will want to install into your "Program Files (x86)" folder which I don't recommend due to Win7 permission issues, it's up to you but I would put it in the same folder you have FSX installed into. My FSX is installed in "C:\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X" so I installed the SDK into "C:\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X SDK" for example.

 

Once you've worked through the first installation process, move on to the SP1a SDK by running "fsx_sdk_sp1a.exe" (again right click, "Run as administrator"). The installer will find the previous installation so you don't need to worry about directing it away from "Program Files (x86)" this time around. You will be warned that the installer will need to remove previous versions of the SDK which is fine, it seems silly that you just finished installing the first version and now it wants to remove it again, but that's the way it works and if you don't install the previous version first the SP1a installer will complain about not finding it. Just roll with it and let it do it's thing.

 

Finally, once SP1a has been installed, install the Acceleration SDK by running "sdk.msi". This one won't give you an option to "Run as administrator" so just double-click it. Same as before, it'll find the previous version and warn you about removing it, let it do it's thing.

 

That should do it, you may delete the temporary folder now or maybe it'd be a good idea to burn it to a CD or copy it to an external drive so you don't have to go through this the next time you need to install the SDKs, it's up to you.

 

 

 

Good luck,

Jim

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Your instructions were awesome! The SDK would not install after my purchase and install of the Gold version from the Microsoft website. After reading through your instructions, I copied the necessary files from the cab files and successfully installed the SDK. Thanks!
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