FSX installation problems

[Dennis]

As some of you may know, my laptop suffered a little mishap (basically a virus that slowed it down and managed to avoid ALL detection by anti-viruses). As a consequence of that, I had to format my entire hard drive.

Instead of reinstalling my simulators in my laptop, I decided to install them on my desktop. FS9 went off without a hitch. FSX is a different story. The first time I tried to install, it went all the way up to the second CD but then stopped abruptly and aborted installation. Subsequent times ended the same way until an error code appeared:

Code: Select all

Error 1607: Cannot initialize InstallShield

Any ideas as to what the problem might be?

By the way, the computer stats are as follows:
Windows Vista (unfortunately) Home Premium
320GB HD
3GB RAM
2.1GHz AMD Athlon X2 processor
NVidia 128 MB graphics card

So these stats are well above the requirements for FSX.

[RatherBFlyin]

Not sure what's causing this one. The only thing I can think of is that either the installation exe somehow got corrupted, or the data on the disk is corrupt (the latter may be more likely if the installation always crashes at the same point). Both options are extremely unlikely, but certainly possible. Can't rule out other possible problems, though.

[Dennis]

Now that I'm on the subject of FS, if I had PMDG planes installed on another simulator (the old files which I still have), if I move them to the new simulator will they show up on screen?

[RatherBFlyin]

They should, yes. I asked PMDG a while back about installing their aircraft on a new computer I had received and was migrating all my FS stuff over to, and they said that as long as I had the install files, there shouldn't be a problem, so I don't think you'll have any trouble with that.

[Dennis]

Finished migrating all the planes. It's literally the first time I used PMDG planes since my laptop never handled them as I hoped it might. WOW! those planes are amazing.

[RatherBFlyin]

Yep. PMDG makes some of the best FS aircraft available, bar none. It's a shame their prices are now so high, though.

[Dennis]

Returning to my FSX problem: here's a screenshot I took of one of the MANY errors I get during installation. If it's not a file that's missing, it's a can't initialize InstallShield.

So without further ado: FSX error

You don't know how many times I click retry, even after confirming the file is there.

[CK245]

Dennis,

This is a Vista problem (I'm sure you knew that on your own, anyway)!
Do you have all the updates including SP1 for Vista installed?

Also try this it worked for me after a lot of aggravation:

1. Un-install or completely remove FSX garbage.
2. Insert DVD-1 and go to SDK folder and run setup.exe
3. After it's done, we need to install SimConnect mannual, to do this
3.1 Goto 'Program Files' folder
3.2 Goto 'Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X SDK\SDK\Core Utilities Kit\SimConnect SDK\lib'
3.3 Run SimConnect.msi
4. After that done, Install the game as normal (Run setup.exe from DVD1)

Hope it helps!!

[Dennis]

It was all going so well, until that same scene. Shoot. What I was thinking of doing was possibly copying some of those files and inserting them into said folder. That way, once the program reads the files, it will look at them and notice that they are there and proceed with installation.

EDIT: It's bad enough I get dozens and dozens of errors during installation, but also, FSX has a mind of its own and does not want to uninstall.

I can't contact Microsoft support because I need to have the Product ID and that can only be accessed inside the game (how convenient)!

[CK245]

Did some search about the first code you received....came back with this!

Let's hope it helps.