Microsoft closes ACES Studio

Yes it's true Microsoft is closing ACES Studio the developers of Flight Simulator. My feelings go to those which have been layoff. Hope they will find a new job asap. Only six members of the original team are left to archive the code and shutdown ACES.

So what does this mean at all? In short terms I don't expect any big changes in the scene. Third party developers still have some new exciting products in the pipe line and I think FSX now has a chance to become the number one flight simulator as hardware gets better and also developers will get the last things out of it. But if speaking in long terms, I really cannot predict anything. Microsoft could decide to continue the development of FS, but it could also happen that simulators like X Plane get more popular and developers switch over.

The one thing that makes me really upset is the way Microsoft has closed ACES and treated his own employees.

Personally I will of course continue to create products for FS. Next will be the minor update for FSMap and I am also starting to work on another new project.

Windows 7, Gadgets and UAC

If you are a beta tester of Windows 7 (like me) and you have turned off UAC, then you might have noticed that your gadgets are not longer working. Today I found a nice tip on how to fix this problem:

1. Open Registry Editor
   
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Sidebar\Settings
3. Create a new dword Value called AllowElevatedProcess
4. Set the value to 1
5. Close the registry editor

Voila they are back again.

I am back

After a long absence I am trying again to keep this blog active. A lot of good things happened during the last two years. I now have two daughters: Emily Sofie (born in October 2006) and Aurelia Luisa (born in last September). I will publish some new pictures soon and you will see why everything has been delayed so much in the last two years.

As some of you might have noticed FSFK v3.0.1 has been released and I am very happy with this release. I wanted two make the development a bit more public, but it turned out that due to the lack of time I was not able to do it the way I wanted it. Anyway I think that v3 really rocks and provides a lot of new tools for analyzing your flights. Check it out!

I am currently also working on FSMap v1.1, which will add some user requests and fix some minor bugs. It will hopefully ready within the next two months.

The year 2009 will also bring something new to my FS development: Team work. In the last six years in my FS career I was always developing everything on my own. Now I am starting to work on a new product with a very very talented group of coders and designers. I currently cannot give you more information, but it will rock!