Good to hear you've got the CH problems sorted.
I always have and still am struggling with mapping and profiling. The PAD planes you mention are a mystery to me... I have googled without success. PAD - my guess is Pilots Anonymous Divorced
I understand how you arrived at WinZip in the first place - what seems like many years ago now, when installing a third party aircraft was still a mystery for most, practically every ReadMe file contained the sentence '...make sure you keep files and folders intact in WinZip' or something similar. This advice I am sure was intended to simplify the installation procedure i.e. the various files would 'automatically' end up in their respective folders. Great idea but... if the author or compiler of the add-on made just a simple mistake, one file could end up in the wrong destination and screw up the whole installation. For the inexperienced an exiting new venture could turn into frustration and the loss of hair in no time.
As recently as FS2002 (which is not all that long ago) Microsoft would warn that adding third-party aircraft was not encouraged unless the enthusiast already had advanced knowledge of the Dos and Don'ts. I was lucky to find a good, simple tutorial which showed me how easy it really was. I no longer have the tutorial but I can say that the same principles still apply all the way into FSX.
The advantage of not having to rely on 'keeping files and folders intact' or relying on self-installers lets us easily retrace our steps if something doesn't work because we have moved the files manually.
It is certainly not my intention to argue - the individual is free to use the apps. and tools of their own choice, whatever feels most comfortable. What I do object to though is the perpetuation of old habits and claims that this is the only way.
If my assumption that WinZip existed before MS adapted the habit of including a .zip utility in their OS is correct, then yes, one probably needed WinZip to extract the contents of a .zip file. But time keeps rolling on and now we are faced with ridiculous scenarios where a young newbie just got FSX, downloads a freeware aircraft which has been updated from the original FS2004 model. This could be a very basic (aircraft) file - very easy to install. The newbie being a newbie might need a little help at first but matters are being complicated by the fact that the .zip file contains an outdated ReadMe which claims that you
need WinZip for starters.
So the newbie goes to the WinZip site and already gets confused as to which version to download... trial - am I doing something illegal? Will the trial version work? Do I have to pay? Finally he's installed WinZip only to find an overwhelming interface staring him in the face... too many options. Unnecessary for the task at hand.
If you buy a brand computer - any brand, somewhere in the manual that comes with it there'll be the sentence: "xxxxxx recommends Microsoft Internet Explorer." In this case there is a clear motivation for this 'recommendation' - money, a business deal. I can live with this kind of advertising; on the downside, millions of consumers worldwide mistake this 'recommendation' for the only and/or best option. After having become familiar with and used MS IE for some time, only a minority, the bravest of the brave will have the courage to move to better browsers which, not surprisingly are actually more user friendly at the same time.
You visit a site which offers information or manuals in the shape of a .pdf document, you'll find: "You
need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the contents of this document, available here xxxxx." This is simply no longer true and complicates matters. Perhaps, as might have been the case with WinZip, the Acrobat Reader was the only freely available app. for its purpose many years ago but nowadays there are more than one better alternatives.
Perhaps the saddest chapter concerning flightsim enthusiasts is the Photoshop myth. There's hardly a simmer out there who hasn't at least once toyed with the idea to create his own aircraft texture(s). Again, I can't be sure, but it seems that Adobe Photoshop was the first quality program of its kind. Simmers who ventured into repainting aircraft used what was available: Photoshop.
If you collect all the "How to repaint aircraft" manuals you can find on the net, you'll discover that probably more than 90% were written by a Photoshop user. (There are rare exceptions.) So if you are serious about repainting, you'll have to purchase Photoshop first and then how to use at least its basic function and then... try and follow the manual you happen to be using. Yet, there are alternatives, free of charge and actually better suited for our purpose. Better suited because they are more user-friendly... of course they do not have the array of tools that Photoshop has but for aircraft textures the whole Photoshop suite is an overkill anyway. Many of the templates provided with paintkits are in .ps (Photoshop) format and cannot be used with other paint programs.
I guess the best way to sum up my little lecture here (I do apologise if it sounded like one) is that the above mentioned apps. and programs, the ones which we are led to believe we cannot live without, are NOT the best. If nothing else, whether they are payware or freeware, they are too clunky and use too much space and computing resources, and usually much slower compared to their competitors.
Compare:
MS IE with Firefox or Chrome
Adobe Photoshop with paint.net
Adobe Acrobat Reader with Foxit
MS Office Suite with OpenOffice.org
WinZip with IZArc etc. etc..
Be well