Aerosoft One installation failure

[Christian007 0]

I am setting up a fresh high-end PC for P3Dv4, planned to install MSFS later. I usually run the PC as a non-admin user for security reasons. This is in line with P3D documentation stating that admin rights are not required to run P3D, only for installation. So, I followed the documentation and installed P3D as standard user which asks for admin rights during the installation. Installation went well.

 

Next, as standard user I wanted to install Aerosoft One to re-install my previously bought add-ons. It also asks for admin rights but then fails with the installation: It ends up with a continuous repeat of asking for admin rights and showing the Aerosoft One splash screen. I tried about 10 loops and then canceled the installation. There was a Desktop icon but it started with an access limitation issue. I deinstalled as standard user but also needed to deinstall in addition from the admin account.

 

Next try was to install it from the admin account. It asked for admin rights several times and installation completed. But now it does not find P3D (which was installed as standard user).

 

I am still wondering why Aerosoft tools still require admin rights (OrbX does not and works without any issues), I suffered a lot from mixed accession right isues on my old machine when Aerosoft add-ons like A320 Prof. require some files in the admin folder and others in the standard user folder (solved by sym links).

 

So, how can I correctly and completely remove the failed Aerosoft One installation from my new machine? And what is the correct way to make it properly running?

[J. Zameit 40]

Hello,

 

Aerosoft One requires administrator privileges for some functionalities to work (eg. reading the registry or creating symlinks).

If Aerosoft One does not detect your Prepar3D installation, you can add it manually from "Settings > Manage Simulators".

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Simply select "Prepar3D v4" or "Prepar3D v5" from the dropdown at the top-right.

Then you can pick your user account and select the P3Ds executable as well as the folder the executable is inside.

This means that when the Prepar3D application file is at "D:\Programs\Prepar3D v5\PREPAR3D.exe", the installation folder is "D:\Programs\Prepar3D v5".

 

[Christian007 0]

Hello,

 

first, thanks a lot for the quick reply.

 

It seems like I was mislead by the introductory message that no sim could be detected and did not even check the settings page for the manual detection option. I now installed Aerosoft One, logged in and could install the first add-ons which are supported. In general I think Aerosoft One is a good step into the right direction of centralizing all the add-on installation. I particularly LIKE the option to indicate which user account runs the sim! I hope that this will solve some of the mixed accession right issues which I encountered in the past.

 

From this experience, I want to highly recommend to add to the documentation of Aerosoft One:

- Installation as standard user with admin rights is NOT sufficient. The installer MUST be run from an admin account (at least unless fixed in the product).

- Automatic sim detection may fail but sims can be added manually

 

For next steps, to do things right, I want to ask:

- For the standard user account, no Desktop icon was created. Is it ok to create a Desktop icon (shortcut from the .exe file) for the standard user account and run Aerosoft One from there with admin credentials or need to run it as right-click "run as administrator"? Or must it always be run from the admin account?

- For my most important add-on A320 Prof: I understand that it is not supported by Aerosoft One. Should I initiate the installation from within Aerosoft One or manually without Aerosoft One? There is a recommended A320 installation procedure documented here (saying I could install as standard user but with admin credentials). Is it still valid if initiating the install via Aerosoft One?

 

 

 

 

 

[Christian007 0]

Hi! I need to add to my previous reply: Although installation of EDDF and LSZH with Aerosoft One worked well, the add-ons are not listed in P3D, neither as add-ons nor as sceneries. In standard user account, nothing happens or is visible. In admin account, P3D shows the message "Building new scenery list" (or similar), but when opening the sceneries page it says "You do not have permissions to maky a copy of SCENERY.CFG".

 

So, I am stuck again. What to do?

[mopperle 4162]

Christian, I think there is a misunderstanding about

- Standard Account

- Administrator Account

- runnning something as Administrator

 

Usually you use Windows and run any software with your "Standard" user account. But sometimes a software needs to write to protected areas of your Windows file system. In this case the user that runs the software (e.g. an installer) needs to have "administrative" rights. This can easily be done by right clicking on the exe/installer and choose "Run as administrator".

When you install a software this way, everything is fine and you can access it under your normal user account. But when you install a software under the "Administrator Account" (means you login as Administrator), the software can only be seen/used when logged in as Administrator.

That means, when you installed P3D with your normal user acccount, but then logged in as Adminsitrator and installed AerosoftONE and Add-ons, this software can not be seen by P3D, because it is a different user with a differen file structure.

[Christian007 0]

Thanks for this clarification, we share the same understanding. I only want to add that from descriptions like here it is not entirely clear to me if "run as admin" means that a standard account has temporary admin rights for an installer or if the installer is then temporarily executed under the admin account itself. Also, I am not sure if starting an installer as standard account by right-click & "run as admin" or starting by double left-click and the installer actively requesting admin credentials is entirely the same.

 

Current situation is:

- P3D as standard account, installer requested admin credentials, installation completed

- Aerosoft One as standard account, requested admin rights, installation failed (see above)

- Aerosoft One as admin account, requested admin rights, installation completed, but P3D does not see the sceneries

(- Checked with OrbX: as standard account, requested admin rights, installation completed, P3D sees the sceneries)

 

What should I do to fix my Aerosoft One installation?

[mopperle 4162]

No idea why you have such problems.

9 hours ago, Christian007 said:

It seems like I was mislead by the introductory message that no sim could be detected

This means that something on your system is not as expected.

Please run the attached tool and post the output, so that we get some more information about your environment.

ASVersionInfo_1103.zip

[Christian007 0]

Thanks, output attached.

 

Inspired by our discussion I did some more research: On my machine, the Aerosoft One installer under standard account "pilot" reproducably(!) behaves different depending on how it got executed:

 

User pilot: Double left-click (installer asking for admin credentials):

- The installer asks for admin credentials but then runs into a loop of showing the splash screen and asking for admin credentials (stopped after ~10 rounds)

- Program folders created in

• C:\Users\pilot\AddData\Local\Programs
• C:\Users\admin\AddData\Local\Programs

- Desktop icons created for pilot and admin (both with admin symbol attached to it)

- Starting the program from the desktop icon (from the pilot account) it again runs into a loop of showing the splash screen and asking for admin credentials (stopped after ~10 rounds)

- The software needs to be uninstalled for both accounts, pilot and admin, by running system settings/programs/deinstall

- The aerosoft-one folder is removed from C:\Users\pilot\AddData\Local\Programs while an empty folder remains in C:\Users\admin\AddData\Local\Programs

 

User pilot: Right-click "Runs ad administrator":

- The installer asks 3 times for admin credentials but then completes the installation

- Program folders created in

• C:\Users\admin\AddData\Local\Programs

- Desktop icon created only for admin (with admin symbol attached), not for pilot(!)

- Starting the program (either from the /Users/admin/AppData... executable or from the admin account desktop icon) brings up the program window correctly (login screen etc., P3D v4 now detected)

- The software needs to be uninstalled for the admin account only, not present in the system settings program list for the pilot account

- An empty folder remains in C:\Users\admin\AddData\Local\Programs

 

 

Compared to OrbX Central:

- Installer started from the standard "pilot" account with double left-click, asked 1 time for admin credentials

- Installation completed, program folders "orbx-central" found in:

• C:\Users\pilot\AddData\Local\Programs
• C:\Users\admin\AddData\Local\Programs

- Starting the program from standard "pilot" account asks once for admin credentials and brings up the program window correctly.

- System settings/programs/deinstall option available only for pilot, not for admin.

(This I think is a consistent behavior as one would expect it)

 

 

asversioninfo-output-2022-07-23.TXT

[mopperle 4162]

Is "admin" really the name of the Administrator account?

[Christian007 0]

vor 21 Stunden schrieb mopperle:

Is "admin" really the name of the Administrator account?

Yes

[mopperle 4162]

OK, then we found the problem.

The account „admin“ on your system is NOT the Administrator Account. It is an account, you or the one who installed Windows on your system, created it, named it „admin“ and maybe gave it administrative rights (but my guess is no).

The true Administrator account will be automatically created when you install Windows. Usually this account is  „unvisible“ and needs to be activated manually, so that he appears on the login/welcome screen.

When a software asks for administrative rights, it wants to perform tasks under the true Administrator, which, again, is NOT your account „admin“.

What you did obviously was to install the software under various accounts: „admin“ and „pilot“.

I suggest to uninstall everything, sim related, you installed under „admin“, reinstall it under „pilot“ and give it the rights when it asks for.

[Christian007 0]

First of all thanks for the continous support and for your efforts trying to solve the problem. Interesting hypothesis but I fear it does not hold true.

 

I want to remind that this is a machine freshly set up from scratch by myself the same way I have set up all other laptops and PCs before, including the one which previously ran P3Dv4 and Aerosoft add-ons (no Aerosoft One, was not yet existing). The "admin" account is the initial account created by Win10 during installation, I just renamed it from "Administrator" to "admin" for the sake of ease.

 

I checked for any other existing and maybe hidden accounts, see screenshots (in German, but I hope this is not an issue. One standard account is blacked out by me for privacy reasons):

Please login to display this image.

Please login to display this image.

Please login to display this image.

Moreover, when starting Aerosoft One installer by "Run as administrator", it asks for credentials for the "admin" account:

Please login to display this image.

And finally, that's why I double-checked with OrbX Central, OrbX is happy with the acocunts, installer and tool running as expected, all add-ons installed and visible for P3D.

 

So, I still have the impression that the issue is around Aerosoft One installer dealing with the accounts.

[mopperle 4162]

TBH, fact is:

- you are the only with such a problem

- the default administrator account is per default named "ADMINISTRATOR" when Windows is being installed. maybe you renamed it for any weird reason

- no software should be installed under the administrator account when normal user accounts shoud be able to use this software.

- in your case you have an installation in the folder "C:\Users\admin\AppData\Local\Programs" what is definitely wrong, as you installed AO with your admin account. This got nothing to do with "Run as Administrator". I do not even have a "programs" folder under my Administrator folder AppData/Local because I simply never install any software under my Administrator account.

 

Sorry, but I'm out here now. If you need further assistence, please open a ticket directly et Aerosoft.

 

[J. Zameit 40]

Hello @Christian007,

 

we were actually able to reproduce this specific issue.

This is quite the rare edge case and we never had this situation before.

 

We are working on it and this will be fixed with the next update.

[Christian007 0]

vor 5 Minuten schrieb mopperle:

- in your case you have an installation in the folder "C:\Users\admin\AppData\Local\Programs" what is definitely wrong, as you installed AO with your admin account. This got nothing to do with "Run as Administrator"

Just to clarify: For the sim setup I particularly tried to install no(!) software from the admin account, only entered admin credentials whe the installers asked for it which was the case for P3Dv4, Aerosoft One and OrbX Central so far. P3D and OrbX installations went fine, Aerosoft One not.

 

By the way: The Uninstaller does not completely remove Aerosoft One, some files and particularly a bunch of Registry keys remain on the system. I see this also as a potential source of issues.

 

I would really like to understand why on my machine the installer does not work, but if are out, I cant' help. Thanks, I will try without Aerosoft One now. Maybe in a future version this will get fixed.

[Christian007 0]

vor 1 Minute schrieb J. Zameit:

Hello @Christian007,

 

we were actually able to reproduce this specific issue.

This is quite the rare edge case and we never had this situation before.

 

We are working on it and this will be fixed with the next update.

Great! Thanks so much!

 

If you found out, please let me know what I did to make "my" case to unusual, want to understand.

[Christian007 0]

Just to update this public thread:

Aerosoft made a new version of the installer which solved the general issue. However, there was still an issue with running the installer as double leftclick or „run as admin“, particularly in combination with the A320 Prof installer. After numerous tries and combinations, from collecting the different issues, I finally got a stable installation by

- installing P3D4 from a true admin account

- with my local user account: make the account a true admin temporarily, install A320 and Aerosoft One, make the account a local user again

 

This was the only scenario in which all installer completed without issue.