A single complete installer for everything but the distributed version of the sim (i.e. you still neeed to have purchased a copy...)

However the install process would be greatly simplified. (We are talking about SDOE WWII/LDOR. WWI is up to Argon...)

Looking for inputs...

It is viable, and I have attempted to make something like this. However we really need Himdog to tweak the installer App for the specific things like where to put the 1.6.0.6 patch files and to copy over sdemons.ini and the keyboard.inp file.

Also, we need a place to upload it with enough bandwidth!! Which is why WWI does not have an all-in-one Patch yet.

Sounds good to me!

S!

Also, we need a place to upload it with enough bandwidth!!

ROTFLMAO!!!!! You are looking at least 2 CDs worth of stuff (not counting the original sim).

Even with high speed you are looking at a long download. CDs however, are cheap...

Bandwidth wouldnt be the issue (stop and think about the amount of stuff we host now). We have 3 sites with 100 Gig of bandwidth/month (and I know of at least two more). When LDOR came out it was a matter of setting up the mirrors correctly. This one goes a bit deeper. If ever made available for download, it would be the CD image file that gets downloaded.

Even from my T1 connection at work it takes time to download that amount of information.

I'd buy an application like this...



http://www.Zur-TECH.com

As far as distributing 'CD Images' goes, there is already a VERY efficient way of doing that out there. BitTorrent. 2 CD's worth of ISO seeded at a few of the major torrent sites would do the trick. All you would need to do would be to download and burn them. You can include the installer and all the other required data. The only fly-in-the-ointment aspect is the patches... you can't put them up on a CD etc.

Perhaps the installer could be 'tuned' to find the patch files on the HD of the user, and re-locate it to a standard place. This should enable it to auto-manage the ini file swapping. You could even build a front-end 'launcher' that allowed you to swap par-files in and out for themed installs.

Sounds good to me, the CD now has so many files that its bound to be confusing to the average user without an installer. It would take 2 CDs now, but the second CD won't be too full. Hopefully the installer might be like the FS-WWI installer so that a simple .htm change is all thats necessary to add the next skin pack or Pacific pack to the CDs. I'd be happy to remain a distribution source for the CDs taking the place of the current Legacy CD. Or if you want to become the distributor that would be fine with me too.

Could be done on a DVD too...

All current CD distributors would continue to do so (if they like..)

Not wanting to complicate things, but I was playing with 7-Zip a while back in conjunction with some add-on aircraft for another sim, and I was getting some astonishing compression rates.

I eventually concluded that this was partly due to having multiple skins for the same aircraft -- the "solid archive" option enables these to be compressed far more efficiently, as the skin files have many similarities to one another. But 7-Zip really does offer useful savings in general, and although I'm not sure what the details are of packaging SDOE add-ons these days, I figure it might be capable of keeping this package to a single CD.

With random data I find that you can expect to save around 20% over a zip simply through superior compression algorithms, but for flight sim mods I had one "Strike Fighters" aircraft that went a 17MB zip down to a 7.5MB(!) 7-zip file, so these seem to be an ideal application. WinRAR did not perform nearly as well.

The software is only 1MB to download. I find it easiest to right-click on files/folders in windows explorer and select the "Add to archive..." menu option.

If you experiment, make sure you use the "7z" format and the "LZMA" method (these are the defaults), and choose at least "Maximum" and maybe "Ultra" for your compression settings, and select "Solid Archive".

Self-extracting archives can also be created, of course. I'd say it's definitely worth a look, if you're not already using it!

I can run it and see, though having the ability to install only select parts is still a consideration. Thanks for the link, definately worth looking at....

this would be a godsend to our game cos all those downloads that make it so fantastic, most people cant be botherd with (boy do they miss out).