RealFlight G3 and Windows XP Media Center Edition

[NumbNutz]

I have a Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 PC and RealFlight G3. RealFlight runs great when I start the program from the normal Windows interface, but when I try to start RealFlight from the Media Center interface I get various error messages. Any way to make this work?

[Ryan Douglas]

We haven't tested with the Media Center Edition of Windows. What error messages are you getting? If you tell us the exact text of the first couple messages (feel free to include screenshots), I'll see if there's anything I can do to help.

[NumbNutz]

I figured out that the only time I get this error message is when the Media Center interface is maximized and controlling the interface. If the Media Center interface is running in a window and the regular desktop is showing, I can start RealFlight G3 from the Media Center interface and it will run with no problem. The reason it is important for it to work from the Media Center interface is my dad isn't familiar with Windows and the MCE interface is easier for him to use.

[NumbNutz]

Has anyone been able to figure out how to get RealFlight to run from the Media Center interface in maximized mode?

[vitek]

when I try to start RealFlight from the Media Center interface I get various error messages

I see that Ryan asked for the text of the error messages that you got, but you only pasted the app compat results. That information is not very useful to us as it is only the name and version information of a few of the .dlls that loaded before the problem occured.

Any one of us would be more than willing to help, but without the proper information there isn't a bunch that we can do at this time. Please provide the exact text of the error messages that you get and maybe your system information (http://12.156.2.54/forums/showthread.php?t=9663) and we will do what we can.

Travis

[NumbNutz]

The error message says "Radio Control Simulator has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience." I have the error signature if that will help.

[Ryan Douglas]

What that means is that RealFlight is crashing. Unfortunately, without a copy of Windows Media Center here to test with, we have way of knowing what's going on in there, so there's not much we can do about it. You (or your dad) will have to start RealFlight from the regular Windows interface instead.

If you happen to receive any different error messages, particularly KEError messages, please let us know about those.

[NumbNutz]

Would it be possible to make a batch file that would shell out of the Media Center interface and call the RealFlight executable or something along those lines? If so, what would be the command syntax?

[Ryan Douglas]

I probably should have asked this sooner: are you trying to run the Launcher, or G3 itself from the Media Center interface? Do they both crash?

I don't know if what you propose would have any effect or not. If you want to try, to run the Launcher you need to run "C:\Program Files\Common Files\KnifeEdge\Launcher.exe REALFLIGHT3", assuming your Common Files directory is in the standard location. "REALFLIGHT3" is a command line parameter which the Launcher requires; note the deliberate omission of a 'G' before the '3'.

To run the RealFlight G3 executable directly, just run <installdir>\RealFlight.exe, where <installdir> is the directory in which you chose to install the program (C:\Program Files\RealFlightG3 by default).

[Ryan Douglas]

Update: we found a machine to try this on. We've only had enough time to install and try to run, not to figure out exactly what's happening, but we did observe the following:

Adding the Launcher shortcut to the Media Center interface and trying to run it from there causes Windows to ignore the command-line parameters that are present in the shortcut, which results in an error message from the Launcher.
Adding the RealFlight G3 executable to the Media Center interface and trying to run while the interface is maximized (i.e., taking up the whole screen) caused G3 to crash, but restoring the Media Center interface so that it takes up only a portion of the screen enabled G3 to start and run normally.

So, #2 is your workaround, if you really need to use the Media Center interface. We've added this info to the bug report.