FSX reinstall Options

[Olderndirt]

Finally forced to uninstall/reinstall FSX. Followed SimForum's tutorial by Nick Needham and all went well through installation of the two original FSX disks. Loaded the default flight and looked at the .cfg then rebooted. Next the 'Acceleration' disk - all I got was a blank .exe page. Tried it on my wifes machine - opened with the normal page so the disk's OK and she has no FSX. Having just used my CDRom to install the basic FSX, have to assume it's OK and proved that by doing a setup/repair of XP. What am I missing here?

[Adamski]

Ugh! Sounds bad. I've never had anything quite like *that*

How do you mean "blank .exe page"?

Have you got UAC turned off ... or are you running the upgrades as Admin?

[Olderndirt]

Ugh! Sounds bad. I've never had anything quite like *that*

How do you mean "blank .exe page"?

Have you got UAC turned off ... or are you running the upgrades as Admin?

Hey Adam - Finally got my head out and discovered two viruses. After deletion, I'm running XP setup/repair again then I'll uninstall FSX, clean the registry then reattempt install. Since I've seen several articles on how to simulate UAC on XP, have to assume it's not included. Normally when the CDRom opens Acceleration, a grey/green window with a few airplanes and a couple of selection boxes appears then the drive pauses, awaiting the selection. Now, while I'm still getting the drive noises, the same window opens completely white/blank and the drive again pauses . Opens with no problem on my wife's machine so the disk is fine and she has no FSX .

[Adamski]

Hey Adam - Finally got my head out and discovered two viruses. After deletion, I'm running XP setup/repair again then I'll uninstall FSX, clean the registry then reattempt install. Since I've seen several articles on how to simulate UAC on XP, have to assume it's not included. Normally when the CDRom opens Acceleration, a grey/green window with a few airplanes and a couple of selection boxes appears then the drive pauses, awaiting the selection. Now, while I'm still getting the drive noises, the same window opens completely white/blank and the drive again pauses . Opens with no problem on my wife's machine so the disk is fine and she has no FSX .

I had real trouble installing the SDK off my original disk - which looked OK (unscratched etc.). I ended up having to use a CD/DVD cloner and installing it off a copied disk. Go figure!!

What about sharing your wife's PC CD drive on the network, then installing it from her drive. Would that work, I wonder?

[Olderndirt]

I had real trouble installing the SDK off my original disk - which looked OK (unscratched etc.). I ended up having to use a CD/DVD cloner and installing it off a copied disk. Go figure!!

What about sharing your wife's PC CD drive on the network, then installing it from her drive. Would that work, I wonder?

We've got a crossover ethernet cable - thanks for the idea.

[mjrhealth]

Malware bytes best freeware malware program even if you have to manually update the free version

[Olderndirt]

Malware bytes best freeware malware program even if you have to manually update the free version

Got that. My German 'G-Data' found the viruses.

[Olderndirt]

We've got a crossover ethernet cable - thanks for the idea.

Sharing the other CDRom worked fine but the end result was the same. Nick, over at SimForums, suggests copying the Acceleration contents to a folder and running from that - a little study needed here. A NEW TWIST. After cleaning my Acceleration disk with my handy-dandy disk cleaning kit - also the laser lens, the disk contents are reduced to a single 'readme' file. "This disc contains a "UDF" file system and requires an operating system that supports the ISO-13346 "UDF" file system specification." Time for a beverage.

[Adamski]

Sharing the other CDRom worked fine but the end result was the same. Nick, over at SimForums, suggests copying the Acceleration contents to a folder and running from that - a little study needed here. A NEW TWIST. After cleaning my Acceleration disk with my handy-dandy disk cleaning kit - also the laser lens, the disk contents are reduced to a single 'readme' file. "This disc contains a "UDF" file system and requires an operating system that supports the ISO-13346 "UDF" file system specification." Time for a beverage.

Ummm .. this appears to be going downhill fast!

Do you know anyone locally that also has an Acceleration CD (that you could borrow)? You'd just use your own serial.

[IslandBoy77]

A thought with viruses: unless your AV can do a boot-time scan (I'm pretty sure the one you have can't), you're likely still infected, as the virus most likely has a copy of itself in the Pagefile - which Windows uses all the time and can't be altered whilst Windows is active. Also, viruses these days tend to bring "friends" - most often various types of malware / spyware which are often as bad as a virus in their own right. I'd recommend MalwareByte, Super Antispyware & Spybot (in that order). Unfortunately, virus removal is quite an art: I've spent 9 years learning a lot of tricks, including how to effectively scan for them, remove them, clean them up etc. Often, by the time I'm done, it would've been quicker to reformat the HDD and load everything from the ground up: something you might want to seriously consider, as I'd say some of the things you are experiencing sound a lot like the virus is still there and / or Windows is damaged.

[dbcunnz]

Do a search "antivirus rescue cd download" you should find one that boots up and does a scan before you PC boots to windows I have used a couple of them to scan a couple of my friends PC when they have gone where they shouldn't have and finished up with a virus that their PC virus scanner couldn't get rid of or the virus had turned their antivirus off.
Might pay you to download it and burn it to a CD on another clean PC.

[Olderndirt]

Do a search "antivirus rescue cd download" you should find one that boots up and does a scan before you PC boots to windows I have used a couple of them to scan a couple of my friends PC when they have gone where they shouldn't have and finished up with a virus that their PC virus scanner couldn't get rid of or the virus had turned their antivirus off.
Might pay you to download it and burn it to a CD on another clean PC.

Tried the 'BitDefender' and the 'AVG' rescue disks. Both came up with error files but nothing infected. Ignoring Acceleration, I downloaded and installed SP1 and SP2 from Microsoft and seemed to pick up this 'thermida' thing - exclusively in FSX and bad. Apparently it has so many 'False/positives', none of the scans pick it up. Have a new 'FSXGold' on order so we'll see what happens.