System Restore Can Result In Missing Aircraft |
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Soaranden
P1 Joined: 14 Feb 2009 Points: 627 |
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Posted: 13 Nov 2011 at 9:43pm |
On the occasions when I use Windows System Restore, I usually pick a Restore Point that is only a few days old. Recently, however, I did a system restore where I needed to pick a restore point that was a couple of weeks old. I was a bit surprised at some of the results.
Some of my Traffic X flights went missing. (I use a lot of freeware user aircraft for my Traffic X AI traffic). Additionally, some of my recently installed liveries and recently installed aircraft models no longer appeared on the FSX "SELECT AIRCRAFT" screen. The installation of the missing aircraft and missing liveries postdated the date of the Windows restore point. My FSX Airplanes folder showed subfolders for each of the missing aircraft. All of the subfolders for each of the missing aircraft and aircraft liveries were also still present. There were no missing thumbnails in any of the missing aircraft's texture folders. I could, therefore, rule out missing thumbnails as the reason for the aircraft not appearing on the FSX "SELECT AIRCRAFT" screen. What I found is that Windows System Restore considers cfg files to be system files. While System Restore leaves user documents untouched, it doesn't do the same with system files. When I ran System Restore, aircraft.cfg files in the folders of aircraft that I had installed prior to the date of the restore point reverted to a version having a date that predated the date of the restore point. This was fine as long as I had not added any liveries that postdated the date of the restore point. For aircraft liveries whose installation postdated the restore point date, however, the aircraft.cfg files contained no information about the new liveries. I also found that if the texture folder for an individual livery had contained a texture.cfg file, the file was now absent if the date the livery had been added postdated the date of the restore point, since there had been no earlier texture.cfg version to which Windows could revert during System Restore. New models whose install date postdated the date of the restore point lacked model.cfg, panel.cfg, and texture.cfg files. (Interestingly, .air files apparently were not considered system files, since they had not disappeared). I found I had a lot of manual restoring of FSX files to do after running System Restore. I wondering, though, what similar experiences others have had, and what things I may be overlooking? Dan |
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freddy
Chief Pilot Joined: 29 Nov 2008 Location: Melbourne, Aust Points: 1339 |
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I've been lucky enough never ever to have to need or use System Restore.
Personally, I keep all of my repaints and downloaded aircraft all together in one folder; with sub-folders therein for each plane. Each sub-folder includes either a complete aircraft.cfg file or a Notepad text file (Readme) of the relevant section of the aircraft.cfg file which needs to be modified. If an aircraft.cfg file reverts back to default, for whatever reason, then I can quickly open the file and simply cut/paste the relevant (modified) section straight in. I did have to these Notepad notes and backups on ene occasion after the "UPDATE FROM CFGs" button in the Traffic Control Centre "Fleet Database" screen apparently (so I believe) reverted a handful of modified values in some of my aircraft.cfg files back to their default values. |
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Soaranden
P1 Joined: 14 Feb 2009 Points: 627 |
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Thanks for your comments, freddy. My experience certainly underscored the importance of backups and the importance of keeping backups current. Since I had not been keeping backups of aircraft.cfg files, et cetera, current, I had to rely on unzipping my backups of aircraft model and aircraft livery downloads to access originals of the aircraft.cfg, model.cfg, texture.cfg files, et cetera that had been lost during System Restore. Making a backup of an aircraft.cfg after each addition of a new livery or liveries would have eliminated the need to copy contents from readme file backups and paste them into aircraft.cfg files that had lost information about recently added liveries during System Restore.
Dan |
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supera380
Check-In Staff Joined: 14 Oct 2009 Points: 16 |
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Hey Dan,
Thanks for posting this info. This is really good to know. While not answering your question I did think about a possible solution to your dilemma. My thought was to create a backup script for FSX config files and the like. I recently created this DOS batch file which runs for my specific system (I have FSX installed on the my E: drive) and I actually have this batch file run once a month through the Windows Task Scheduler. It basically creates a back up on my D: drive (different to my FSX drive) and stores all the backup folders under a folder named with the current date. This way I essentially create a chronological library but specifically targeted for key FSX config files. Anyways, I adapted it to have it create copies of everything from the main FSX folder and below with an .cfg extension as well as other important files in other locations. The script is as follows:- @echo off set curr_date=%DATE:~10,4%-%DATE:~4,2%-%DATE:~7,2% mkdir "d:\fsxbackup\%curr_date%" copy c:\Users\Mark\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX\FSX.cfg "d:\fsxbackup\%curr_date%" copy C:\Users\Mark\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX\dll.xml "d:\fsxbackup\%curr_date%" copy C:\Users\Mark\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX\exe.xml "d:\fsxbackup\%curr_date%" copy C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\FSX\scenery.cfg "d:\fsxbackup\%curr_date%" xcopy "E:\Flight Simulator X\*.cfg" "d:\fsxbackup\%curr_date%\" /S /F /H The Xcopy command is the one that basically backs up all the .cfg files for your aircraft and what have you. The /S selects all sub folders below the source folder specified, the /H copies any hidden .cfg files and the /F is a running log of the backup process. If others want to use this script, be sure to modify the paths to reflect the correct locations of your FSX installation and then save this script as a .BAT file. Then you can run as Administrator this batch file. Anyways, I hope this helps. Regards Mark |
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freddy
Chief Pilot Joined: 29 Nov 2008 Location: Melbourne, Aust Points: 1339 |
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Great idea. Thanks for sharing.
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supera380
Check-In Staff Joined: 14 Oct 2009 Points: 16 |
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Your welcome Freddy!
Some additional info and pointers:- I discovered that it's actually best to have the xcopy command run first before the explicit copy commands in the script since this will allow the correct/most recent files to be saved. Second, should anyone struggle with putting this batch file into Windows Task Acheduler, that can be tricky to get it all working. I found xcopy was only partially working by copying the top level FSX .cfg files but not those in subfolders. After tearing my hair out for 2hrs I finally got it working. The key to success was to have either the setting "Run only when user is logged" or the setting "Run with user logged on or not" but with this option I had to select "store no password" check box. Last, be careful on storage space! I was amazed to find that when running this backup routine, the backup folder amounted to well over 7Mb!! Cheers Mark
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Soaranden
P1 Joined: 14 Feb 2009 Points: 627 |
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Hi, Mark,
I know this topic was started long ago, but your above batch file is such a bright solution for backing up all cfg files in FSX to a drive unaffected by System Restore that I thought I'd bring the topic up front, again, since there may be forum newcomers who didn't see your batch file when you originally posted it. In my case, I run the file manually rather than via the Task Scheduler, and since I have FSX installed under Program Files (x86), I run the file with full Administrator control. Dan |
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