A fix for the bogus SP2 error message

by mark.avey on December 20, 2007

FS Insider has released a post detailing the steps required to fix the bogus error message some people are experiencing when installing Service Pack 2 for Flight Simulator X (a fix for a fix!).

When installing FSX Service Pack 2, you might see this message: “Microsoft Flight Simulator X Service Pack 2 requires the English version of Flight Simulator X.�?

So far, the immediate cause is the same: missing data in the registry. During testing, the root cause was also the same: Copying the installed files from another partition or machine rather than using the installer. That’s not officially supported, of course, but given the size of Flight Simulator, it’s fairly common to want to move the installed files (to a bigger partition, for example) without reinstalling.

Service Pack 2 requires the registry data that the original RTM and SP1 installers write. (It uses the data in the registry to find the installation directory and the language.dll file. It checks the version information in language.dll to make sure it has the same language as the SP2 installer; otherwise, you’d end up with a broken mix of localized content.)

You can find out how to cure the problem over on the FS Insider site.

Tags: FSX SP2