Prepar3d v4 installers

[toprob]

There will be new multi installers for the Subscription/compilation, plus the two existing Real NZ products, I just need to put them together. Real NZ Nelson will be first, and is almost ready to go, I just need to sort out a couple of things.
I had initially intended to let Prepar3d v3 and v4 share an installation, to save on space. However this won't work really, for two reasons -- first, in case anyone has FTX NZ installed in only one sim, like me, the two installations need to be different, but more importantly, there may be some future updates to the v4 version which wouldn't work in v3. I'm thinking of v4-specific features whatever they may be.

You may have seen a discussion on AVSIM (and elsewhere) following a post stating that you shouldn't install Prepar3d v3 addons in v4. The poster made a very good case, but really it is not based entirely on fact. He suggests that scenery compiled for v3, for instance, may mess up a v4 installation. As Lockheed Martin have used exactly the same libraries moving to v4, I can't really see that this is a real concern.

However -- as well as the new installers, I am considering writing a small tool which will activate any existing v3 version of my scenery in v4. This would mean that those who have limited download speeds won't need to redownload the entire subscription package if they already have a v3 installation. Is there an interest in this? Let me know.

Dunedin is awaiting one tweak to the autogen config merger tool, at the moment the v4-compatible version only adds the custom autogen to the 'speedtree' version, if you choose not to use the new trees, you won't see the merged Godzone vegetation. As soon as this is finalised, I'll complete the installer.

[jpreou]

I have downloaded installers Rob, but when I re-build it will be fresh and direct into v4 with no v3 in sight (or ever having been installed, so no 'legacy' registry or file system hang overs either).
As time passes, more and more will be in this situation I think. A standalone installer that can 'unpack; a previously downloaded package would be useful in this scenario.

I can't recall what it was (nothing of yours, an aeroplane maybe), but I had to install P3Dv2 to get something installed and then moved to P3Dv3 with a lot of messing around to avoid version conflicts; I won't be doing that again; it either goes straight into v4 or it doesn't go in at all.

(...assuming I end up in v4 and not other, per other more recent posts)


PS "aeroplane" is marked by spell checker as incorrect! Fantastic ; on a flight sim forum too <GIGGLE>

[toprob]

That's actually the best plan, but I've had to devise a way to cater to everyone -- this is trickier than you'd think. What I'd like to do for v4 -- and v3 -- would be to use the 'new' install method, which doesn't involve adding scenery to the Library. This means that a sim reinstall or update would automatically pick up the scenery. However the autogen config merger tool doesn't yet support this, so I'll leave everything as-is.
At least I've managed to remove the scenery library editing from Prepar3d 3 and 4 for all the current installers. Now Prepar3d itself adds the entries, so there's a lot less chance of messing up your scenery library.
The process is getting better, although not simpler for developers, so one day all the sims I support may use a similar automatic process. Until then, it's fun, but messy!
A lot of people are against the new method of adding addons, simply because it writes to their system drive, and most want to store their addons elsewhere. However this can still happen, it's only a small xml file only. Once people get used to this, it will become more popular. In the meantime it'll be a mixture of old and new.
The VLC Libraries installer, for instance, needed a quick update for v4, and that still puts the scenery into your Prepar3d folder. This will no doubt be updated one day, but at the moment there are too many legacy installs to go messing around with it. At least the v4-compatible version no longer does the manual scenery.cfg edit...