Ok, I intalled the add-on manager as you said, my fsx still freezes at the splash screen like always, I do have fs copilot installed as I know that there is some conflict between the two, when I disable fscopilot in the dll.xml, my fsx will work, but I wont be able to connect to Vatsim, which is where I fly 99.99% of the time.
The suggestion about exchanging the order of loading came from something that we noticed a while ago: if FS Copilot loaded before the Addon Manager, it prevented the creation of the Addon Manager menu, and any further communication between Addon Manager and Simconnect, as if FS Copilot blocked Simconnect communication of addons loaded after it.
I also had some email exchanges between the FS Copilot author about this, but he didn't had any clue. However, exchanging the order of the modules and having the Addon Manager loaded first, used to fix the problem.
There was a post about it on the old Cloud9 forum:
http://forum.fscloud9.it/viewtopic.php?t=4269&sid=3fe8c431967d53cd85c68ef4db4fa059However, this was about 3 years ago, before FSX SP2 was published so, it might not be useful anymore. There might be some additional issues with Vista or Windows 7 as well.
The issue is, last time I've checked it, FS Copilot used to be compiled requiring the FSX SP1 Simconnect, meaning it should work with FSX SP1 or FSX SP2 because, on a correctly installed FSX, both versions will be available.
Instead, the Addon Manager is compiled to require the FSX SP2 Simconnect, and it can't be made in any other way, since it actually *uses* some SP2-only features.
Now, in THEORY, thanks to the Windows Side by Side loading mechanism, it should be possible for two modules to use both versions together at the same time meaning, if 2 modules are loaded in FSX, one ( FS Copilot ) requiring the SP1 Simconnect and another ( the Addon Manager ) requiring the SP2 Simconnect, BOTH .DLL will be loaded in memory at the same time which, as I've said, should work in theory, but it's a very complex mechanism, that might not be very reliable, or might have changed in Windows 7.
This might be a reason why the 2 programs can't work together and, if this is the case, I'm afraid it's FS Copilot that needs to be updated to support the current Simconnect version.
If they wanted to target more users and having the program work on FSX SP1 as well might be desiderable but, the correct way of doing this is NOT just compiling for the old version and hoping that Windows Side-by-Side would work. Instead, they should check the Flight Sim version and DYNAMICALLY load the most updated Simconnect that is being found, which is how FSUIPC does, for example. FSUIPC works with FSX SP1 and SP2, but doesn't create problems to the Addon Manager because, under FSX SP2 ( which is the only version that we run under so, it's the only case when the 2 are used together ), it's able to dynamically load the Simconnect SP2 version so, there's no chance for a conflict or a crash, becasue we use that one as well.
It has been quite some time since the last time I've checked FS Copilot so, I have no idea if they updated to use SP2 Simconnect but, this is really the only possible explanation I have for the two not working together.
At this time, the only solution to use our products and online networks, is to use Squawbox instead.
