Re-installing Flight Simulator on XP home

[catchment]

For many years I had FSX installed on my only hard drive. I recently bought a second internal hard drive, and tried to "move" the game onto that one by uninstalling it from the original.

I had some problems with not being able to uninstall it correctly, so I deleted most of the files manually, and then ran a registry repair. But I still can't seem to install it. I insert the install disk, but the only two options I have are "repair" and "remove".

Clicking "repair", it runs for a few seconds, and then it says:

Error 1722. There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A program run as part of the setup did not finish as expected.

So, I tried "remove". Again, a few seconds, then:

Error 1316. A network error occurred while attempting to read from the file C:\WINDOWS\Installer\Microsoft Flight Simulator X.msi

What do I need to do so that when I put in the install disk, it allows me to do a full install onto the new hard drive?

[Boris]

If you have definitely removed all traces of it from Program Files, and everything for FSX under Application Data in Documents and Settings (for every user) - you will need to enable "Show Hidden files" under Tools/Folder Options/View to get Application Data to show.

Then, it appears that you still have some registry entries for FSX which is preventing the install ?

You can try using regedit to identify and manually remove all remaining references to FS, but .............

what I would do is download jv PowerTools 1.3 (the last free version) from http://www.oldversion.com/jv16-PowerTools.html

Install it, run it and select the Registry Tool.

This shows the registry entries for all the software you have ever used.

Go through the list, marking up any references to Flight Simulator and delete them.

This will hopefully resolve the problem.

Take great care when you do this. Manually hacking the registry can kill your Windows installation if you get it wrong.

I would suggest that before you start you use Erunt http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/ to back up your Registry in the event of total calamity !!!

Warning - If you do not understand what I say above, or are not confident about working with Registry files - do not even start the process !!

[catchment]

Thank you. I downloaded jv16 and searched for all entries related to Flight Simulator, found a few dozen and deleted them all. I tried inserting the disc, and still only got options for "repair" or "remove".

To my surprise, though, I went ahead and went through "remove", and it went to the end, saying it was successfully uninstalled. I rebooted, but it STILL only gives me repair/remove options when I put in the disc :(

[Boris]

There must still be something left in there - a .ini or .dat file ?

Did you clear it all out of Application Data ?

Have a look under Program Files/Common files as well ?

[Boris]

jv PowerTools was the simple way ........

If you're feeling brave - you can also try this manually with regedit :-

Click Start -> Run

Type regedit into the "Run" box and hit Enter.

When the Registry Editor opens,

Click "File" -> "Export...", name the file "registry_backup", and save it to your root "C:\" drive. (Just in case ! ............. for easy recovery, if need be)

When the "Export" completes, check to make sure you are still clicked on on "My Computer", and hit "CRTL + F" to open your find window.

Type Microsoft Flight Simulator X

into the window and hit Enter...

When the search finds an entry for FSX it will stop on it.

Delete that entry.

Pay attention to what you are doing!

If you are unsure about the entry, leave it!

To find the next entry hit "F3", again ..... repeat as before.

When there are no more entries found, reboot your computer.

After reboot, try to install FSX again and let me know how you fare.

Good luck !

[catchment]

There must still be something left in there - a .ini or .dat file ?

Did you clear it all out of Application Data ?

Have a look under Program Files/Common files as well ?

I checked everything under application data and common files, I found everything I could that had FSX or flight simulator or something else related to that within the name.

I also did the regedit that you suggested, looked for everything with "simulator" or "flight" in the name and deleted everything that was related to FSX (which wasn't much).

My concern is that the files that are left don't have "flight" or "simulator" in the name, so I will never be able to find them....

But this just seems weird. Is it really so finicky that one dumb little file would make the installation autorun think that the entire game is fully installed?

[Boris]

I've been googling this, and it appears that this is a fairly common problem with FSX + FS9 - FS 2004 was much more user friendly.

One school of thought thinks it is a Windows Installer issue ?

You could try this :- (but I cannot guarantee that it will cure your problem)

Use the Windows Installer Clean Up Utility to remove the residue of any files remained after uninstalling FSX manually.

1. Click on the link below to get it :-

/>http://www.softpedia.com/get/Security/Secure-cleaning/Windows-Installer-CleanUp-Utility.shtml

2. Click on Run and then click on Run again.

3. Follow the on-screen instructions to install the Windows Installer Clean Up utility.

4. After the installation is complete then click on Start and then click on All Programs

5. At the bottom of All Programs locate and select Windows Install Clean Up.

6. A window will appear with the list of multiple programs installed on your system.

7. Click On Microsoft Flight Simulator X and then click on Remove.

8. Once the game is un-installed exit the utility, restart the system.

Then try your FSX installation again.

Good luck again - I'm off to bed now :)

[catchment]

Thanks again for all of your help. Unfortunately, there was no entry for Flight Simulator on the list of programs from the Windows Installer Clean up Utility

[AlanHo]

You might find it quicker - if Flight Simulator is that important - to save your data onto another drive, reformat your C: volume and do a clean install of Windows and all your software including Flight Simulator.

[catchment]

You might find it quicker - if Flight Simulator is that important - to save your data onto another drive, reformat your C: volume and do a clean install of Windows and all your software including Flight Simulator.

Well I thought about that, I've never actually reformatted a hard drive before (never needed to, knock on wood), and I'd really not like to do it now.

Since I want the game to install on my new hard drive, I thought about just taking that out, putting it into another computer, installing it onto the drive with that computer, then moving it back to this computer. I'm not positive that it will work, but I can't think of why it wouldn't. I would really, really not like to bother with that and just figure out why the heck the installer thinks that the game is installed. It has to be just one thing...

[catchment]

Okay, I fixed it. :D :D

In case anyone in the future happens to read this, all I did was go into Program Files, and rename 2 folders: "InstallShield Installation Information" and "Uninstall Information".

That's it! Note that these are hidden folders, so you'll need to turn on hidden folder viewing.

[MANEMAN]

I can imagine that is going to help a lot of people who cannot afford to actually fly a real airplane. Thanks.

John.