TIP#1: MANUALLY INSTALLING AIRCRAFT TO FS2000

Using win explorer click on the drive letter that you have your sim located
in. The default is C: then click on file in the top tool bar, select new
folder and name it 000000 [these are zeros]. This will insure it is
always at the top of the directories list in winexplorer.

Now click on C:\ 000000 and then file again, select new folder and name it
unzipped. Now set up your winzip or pkzip [the utility you use for
unzipping zip files] to use that folder as default folder to receive the
folders and files you unzip. I also advise setting up one more folder in
the C:\ 000000 directory named downloads and set your down load program to
default to that folder when downloading . Keeps everything close at hand
and saves time looking for stuff.

Now, if you have done all of the above, your downloaded zip file should
be in C:\ 000000\downloads and when you unzip it, the unzipped folders and
files will be in C:\000000\ unzipped. At this point it is advisable to read
the readme files that usually accompany downloads.

If the aircraft you downloaded was a full pack i.e.; complete with panel and
sound there will usually be another zip inside the first zip called
gauges. I unzip this directly to my gauges folder in FS2K. DO NOT LET IT
OVERWRITE A GAUGE THAT IS ALREADY IN THE FS2000 GAUGES FOLDER.

Now I check to make sure that when the gauges were packed there wasn't an extra
folder called gauges and I have ended up with this ...
C:\program files\Microsoft games\FS2000\gauges\gauges if this happens, you
need to drag and drop all the gauges from the second gauges folder up to
the first then delete the empty gauges folder.

Now, back to unzipped. There usually is a folder with the name of plane,
when you open this folder there is another folder with basically the same
name. When you open this folder you should see 4 more folders
model...panel...sound...texture and 2 or 3 loose files...the 2 files that
are important have extensions named air and cfg any other loose files
may be deleted if you so desire.

At this point I open each of the folders. Model should contain 2 files
with the extensions mdl and cfg...Panel should contain a file called
panel.cfg and several files with the extension bmp. THIS IS
IMPORTANT...IF THERE ARE NO FILES WITH EXTENSION BMP then it wasn't a
complete pack and you should open the panel.cfg using notepad.

There will be a line that starts alias= fsconverter heavy 4.panel.cfg or
something similar to this alias=b737-400.panel.cfg In any case IF YOU DO
NOT HAVE THIS PANEL IN THE CONVERTER OR THAT PARTICULAR PLANE in your
FS2000\aircraft folder THIS PLANE WILL NOT WORK. You can however
change the alias to a plane that is in your Fs2000\aircraft folder and has
a panel you like by changing the line to read.. alias= the exact name of
plane.panel.cfg using same form as the alias line that was there
originally. The same applies to the sound folder if there are no files
with the extension wav and the sound.cfg is an alias=. THIS IS THE MOST
COMMON REASON PLANES DO NOT APPEAR IN FS2000

The texture folder should have some files with the extension .bmp if it is
a plane made for FS2000 or the extension .0af and .1af and so on, if it was a
plane for FS98 [yes, most of the FS98 planes will work in FS2000 if you
have the correct gauges in the gauges folder or the panel is aliased to a
plane you do have]

If, everything checks out, I now drag the just the plane folder
containing the other 4 folders from unzipped to my FS2000 aircraft
folder...Sounds like a lot of work, but after you do it this way several
times it is easy and faster than letting some plane or panel manager do
it, just to find out when you start your sim the plane isn't there. FINAL
WORD OF CAUTION...in any of the files that can be opened with notepad..one
space, letter. comma, or other symbol, either added,removed,or out of
place will prevent the plane from appearing in FS2000.

GOOD LUCK, GOOD FLYING.....SIERRA HOTEL 130 OUT