Fs2004 not installed?

bawls327 wrote:

I am trying to install some service updates for the pmdg 747 when I see that it comes up with an error saying that I do not have fs2004 installed. So I go and see if all my planes are there etc and I even start fs2004 and it works fine. What shall I do to fix this problem?

This is a weird problem I have encountered on several occasions with other add-ons.

Weird because the very same add-on sometimes finds FS2004 and sometimes it doesn't -- haven't been able to find out why yet, but it's clearly an issue of the installer (.exe).

Think about it this way:

Strictly speaking you don't have FS2004 installed. Why? Because the path is clearly Microsoft Games / Flight Simulator 9.

If the installer lets you change the target folder or path, change FS2004 into Flight Simulator 9 and you might just be lucky.

PS: I haven't tried this but it just occurred to me -- if the installer doesn't let you change the name of the target folder, just create a new folder in your Microsoft Games directory and name it FS2004.
Now the installer should find the target. If that works, you'll have to move the bits and pieces out of the folder you created manually into their respective folders.

Sounds like a registry problem, or it could be. The PMDG installer looks to the Windows registry for information about where your FS9.exe file is located. The information is probably stored in:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator\9.0

I had this problem for a while, and when I looked at that registry entry it turned out to be blank. Hence the problem.

If you're not comfortable working with the registry, there are a couple of tools that can set things up for you. Here's one:

http://tweakfs.com/download/fs9path_utility.zip

Should be fine on XP as long as your account has admin rights. On Vista you may need to disable User Account Control to allow the utility to alter the registry.