I've always wondered why the Compatibility Mode can't be used.
Because it makes objects to appear only when get very close, or parts of objects disappearing, it's probably a side effect on video drivers. And it creates havoc with Windows folder location to product that ARE compliant with Windows 7, like all our own.
Some aircraft may require it to run properly. For example, near the bottom of the Vista/Win7 FAQ page for the Level-D 767 (http://www.flight1.com/view.asp?page=vista), the user is encouraged to try the XP SP2 Compatibility Mode
That suggestion is wrong. The issues with non Vista-compliant airplanes (without mentioning it's their developers that should make it compliant in the first place), is usually a permission issue. Those products wrongly try to *write* into the FSX folder that, under the Vista/Windows 7 security model is not allowed IF FSX is installed in the C:\Program Files folder.
This could be fixed in either of the following ways:
- the airplane developer should fix the gauges and NOT try to write in the the FSX folder, which is bad practice and, instead, using the proper folders under %APPDATA%. All our products are correctly doing this, that's why they can claim to be 100% Vista/Windows 7 compliant.
Since this first option might not be available, you can fix it from your own side in the following ways:
- By installing FSX into a folder outside C:\Program Files, where you regular user account has permission to write into, like C:\FSX
OR
- If you don't want to reinstall, you can just edit your FSX folder security settings, and ADD your own user account to get full control over it.
OR
- Run FSX As Administrator. That's why I've said the Administrator mode can be used, but the "Compatibility" mode not. However, this is a bit less safe than the previous folder permission change solution.
So, anyone telling you their product "requires" compatibility mode, is wrong, and it's a cheap way to "fix" the problem without having to deal with it, which of course would be fixing their code to write in the correct folders.
I have the Level-D installed, and it runs in FSX just fine WITHOUT any compatibility mode enabled. Of course, I have my FSX installed into C:\FSX (which is NOT required by OUR products anyway), which means I never have any problem with those non Vista-Windows7 compliant addons and I never had to turn on any compatibility mode whatsoever and never had to run FSX As Administrator too.