useful tip P3D5 same location as v4??

[DeeJay]

Hi tigether,

 

first a big thank you for supporting yet another P3D version with no extra cost!!

 

I've read this topic about moving Orbx products from v4 to v5 without reinstalling them. And that lead me to another question: Can I uninstall P3d v4, but install P3d v5 into the same folder than v4 before? ...so that the installation folder is actually still named "P3D4"??

There are a LOOOOOT of addons there, of which many have ini files or little *.bgl or texture files in the default P3d folders. I know, I will have to update many addons anyway, but many others might be easier to use if the structure was the same as before.

Unlike LM's idea with using the xml activation method (which is very handy for such a situation), many addons haven't been using it and installed into the root P3d folder.

 

I'm not intended to use both P3d versions alongside. It's more a question of when exactly I'm gonna switch to v5.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

Cheers, Dominik

 

 

[Sabretooth78]

This seems like it would be fraught with a lot of risk in terms of running the new sim, unless you completely emptied the P3D4 folder so that it was effectively new.  Otherwise if I understand what you're saying, you might end up spending far more time down the road trying to diagnose seemingly unsolvable problems with certain add-ons that you might not have had you spent the time up front in installing properly.  For one thing, the P3D4 uninstallation would necessarily delete all of the files it installed, so any add-ons you installed which replaced default files (a practice which needs to end) would be deleted.

 

It's probably well worth the time (and if you're an early adopter, you have plenty of it as you wait for add-on compatibility - not to mention whatever effects COVID might have having on your life right now) to curate your add-on collection and install things "the right way".  You'll thank yourself after you do it.  I did the same, to the extent possible, when I last reinstalled the OS on my rig about 8 months ago.  There are plenty of ways to install those "non standard" add-ons into the add-on.xml method as well, such as installing to a empty folder (sometimes this requires a dummy fsx.exe or p3d.exe file in that otherwise empty folder) and then moving those files into their own folder and creating an add-on.xml based on what kind of mess it made in the empty folder - and you'll be happy you have that scattershot mess contained the next time Lockheed Martin puts out a content update.

 

There will be a handful of things which won't cooperate and need to install into the sim, but in that case just make a list of what they are.  In my case, I know that client/content/scenery updates, etc. will require a reverification of certain Orbx products, REX, ENVTEX, etc., but the list is fairly short.  Some add-ons (Drzewiecki Moscow is one that comes to mind) install pretty cleanly but disable stock files (in its case, scenery/EURE/Moscow.bgl) so just be aware of those, so you can run back through and re-disable them.  Staying on top of all this requires some good note-keeping and a ton of patience, but subsequent updates will be far less of an issue and you should be back up and running in a half hour or less!  Not to mention you'll have a much more finely tuned control over your scenery library.

[DeeJay]

OK, thanks a lot. So, I think waiting a few weeks and tidy up my addon mountain meanwhile might be the way to go. And a chance to install all addons in the external way, if possible - at least the sceneries, so that I will have a new clean P3D v5.

 

Thanks again.