There is a "rumor" around saying we shouldn't install sceneries (airports and stuff) into the root folder of Prepar3D v3 because of the updates LM offers in the future.
During the Beta period, I always updated P3D using the new system of updating just the client, instead of reinstalling everything ( which means just 100MB to download instead of 10GB ), and there weren't any problems with any of our products.
Yes, the general principle of developer not having to change "core" files, sounds reasonable, except it cannot always be applied in real world. What about, for example, if a core P3D file file MUST be changed, otherwise the addon product would have issues ?
Let's the take default Pushback truck, that we must remove when installing GSX (otherwise there will be two trucks, possibly on top of each other, wasting VAS and fps...). Since there's no way to disable *only* that vehicle, without disabling the whole Scenery\Global\Scenery in the scenery.cfg and thus killing most of the default airport objects, we don't have any other choice than patching the .BGL to remove *just* the default pushback truck, leaving all the rest intact.
This was just the first example that came to my mind, but I'm sure there are plenty, considering how many 3rd party addons are out there.
Even LM has admitted that some addons (such as OrbX) MUST be installed in the root folder, otherwise they won't work, but I'm sure they are not the only ones.
Yes, I agree the new structure has some merit, but it's just a suggestion, because some changes might be reverted by LM updates but, at least as far our products are concerned, the worse you'll have to do is that you will have to relaunch our installers, in case this will ever happen.
Which, at least in our case, will not have any impact on the product activation, since we never stored such information in the root of the sim, and not even as files, but they are safe in the registry in their own section, separated from the section used by the sim itself, allowing to uninstall/reinstall our products (and even the host sim) an unlimited number of times, without worrying about activation.
Is this true, or can we continue install sceneries and stuff like we did in v2.5?
I cannot comment on any scenery or product out there, but you can surely continue to install FSDT products using their current installers, which works in P3D V3, and trust the installers and the uninstallers will do their job correctly.