Difficult start to Windows 7 Oolite

[smudge]

I have used MS Flight Simulator Programs since 1995 and I am used to adding aircraft, scenery and third party zip files.

I have spent half of today trying to load OXPs into the latest version of Oolite via the AddOns file. The whole exercise has been a complete failure and extremely irritating. I had read through all the "how to" entries on the installation of OXPs beforehand but to no avail. I must have the "Addons" in an incorrect position relative to oolite.app. I have no doubt that my frustration is due to reading whatr I expect to read rather than what isactually written.

Perhaps a member of this forum could post a screen picture clearly showing which files go where? That would be most appreciated.

Help would be appreciated.

I used to play Elite with my two sons when it first appeared.

[Cody]

Hi smudge and welcome... is your Oolite installed in Program Files? If so, this thread may help.

[gizmo]

Hi Smudge and welcome to the friendlist board this side of Riedquat.

Regarding Oolite and Windows (7)  Running_Oolite-Windows might help.

The Vista part also applies to Windows 7.

[Diziet Sma]

G'day and welcome aboard, Smudge!

The Vista part also applies to Windows 7.

And even Windows 8, so far as we can tell.

[Pleb]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the windows installer automatically install Oolite to the C:\Oolite directory anyway? I have always had mine in this folder, except before when I think it installed it to the Program Files directory...

[Cody]

... but doesn't the windows installer automatically install Oolite to the C:\Oolite directory anyway?

Yep, that is the default install location for Oolite. Some versions of Win Vista/7/8 seem to override this somehow (I ain't too sure about this).
I have Win 7 Ultimate and get no problems - possibly because Win 7 Ultimate/Pro has more user-control than Home Premium?

[Pleb]

I bought a new laptop at the weekend, which sadly had Windows 8 on it, and when I installed Oolite it automatically came up with C:\Oolite as the default directory. Of course if it had tried to put it anywhere else I would have bitchslapped it down...

[smudge]

Thanks for the welcome messages!

I am grateful to Jens for quickly identifying the required thread in previous bulletin entries which immediately gave me a clue on where my own error occurred. Most appreciated were the installation notes written by "Gimi".

I have two drives on my computer and up to the present I have spent most of my computer time since 1995 using the MS series of Flight Simulator programs and the various addon programs for that genre. On recently acquiring a new computer I installed all my MSFS programs on to the secondary drive. In fact I spend most of my time using that secondary drive to such an extent that I regard my primary drive as non existant!

Quite without considering the possible implications I initially installed Oolite onto my secondary drive where it functioned as designed until I tried to add some OXPs. Despite many hours of trying and reading the Oolite "how to" on installation I just could not get the OXPs to work!

The solution to my problem was quite simple:

Move all the Oolite OXP zip files from the secondary drive to the desktop. Delete Oolite from my secondary drive including checking my secondary drive on screen and deleting the remaining Oolite files. I then defragged my secondary drive.

After reading "Gimi" notes on the correct installation of Oolite I made a brand new installation of Oolite on my primary drive noting that after doing so that there was already an empty "AddOns" file in postion in this new installation. I checked the the 'vanilla' installation of Oolite did work before successfully installing my first OXP "Delightful Docking".

Conclusion: All is now as it should be.

Should anyone else have more than one drive please be sure to install "Oolite" in the "C" drive.

Many thanks for the assistance.

[Cody]

Glad you got it working, smudge...

Should anyone else have more than one drive please be sure to install "Oolite" in the "C" drive.

I actually have Oolite (and Oolite-Trunk) installed on my D partition - it works fine there.

[Svengali]

Should anyone else have more than one drive please be sure to install "Oolite" in the "C" drive.

I actually have Oolite (and Oolite-Trunk) installed on my D partition - it works fine there.

Yep. And this together with different versions of Oolite (v1.76.1, v1.77 and trunk).

[parazaine]

My C: drive is a SSD with my OS (windows 7) and as few other files as possible there. Unfortunately Windows 7 (how i hate microsoft OS's) insists on installing some things in the default location (Oolite is NOT one however) and seems to have major problems with programs installed on a secondary drive, especially if they are installed within the Programs folder locations.

I have got into the habit of (where possible) installing programs to custom folders outside the program folders. Additionally, you need to turn off user account control (which imo should be classified as malware).

Windows 7 has caused me multiple problems when installing software to my secondary drive but installing to custom folders outside the programs folders seems to solve the majority.

As far as Oolite is concerned, I now have one installation on my secondary drive (I used to have two) with no problems. As far as .oxp's are concerned, you need to navigate to the final folder with .oxp attached (the one with the data and config files etc in it) and copy/paste that into Addons. I have sometimes installed the wrong folder myself, it is fairly easy to do. I also have a folder containing the original .oxp .zip files and a temporary holding folder for swapping .oxp's in and out of the addons folder but hey, i'm a bit of a compulsive obsessive