FS2002 FAQ
Edited & reformatted questions & answers from my mailbox & the Simvation forum

Q I've installed several FS2000 aircraft to FS2002. They work fine except the gauges seem to be missing.
I've read the instructions but can't find any gauges in the file. What am I doing wrong?

A You might not be doing anything wrong. Many FS aircraft have no panel of their own but are aliased to use the panel of a default aircraft. I suspect these aircraft are aliased to one of the generic FS2000 Converter panels. FS2002 has no converter which explains the problem. The quickest way to fix this is to re-alias the panel.cfg to a similar default aircraft. Find panel.cfg in the Panel folder of your aircraft. CFG files can be opened & edited in Notepad. Here's an example.
An FS2000 Airbus A320 might well be aliased to the FS Converter twin engined heavy jet panel like this.

[fltsim]
alias=FSFSCONV\PANEL.JET.HEAVY.2

Change it like this to use the FS2002 default b737_400 panel complete with gauges.

[fltsim]
alias=b737_400\panel

Exit Notepad saving changes.
Panels can be aliased to any aircraft in your FS2002\AIRCRAFT folder providing it has its own panel files & is not aliased itself. You must use the exact folder name of the slave aircraft or the aliased aircraft will not show up on the FS2002 menu..You can find a more suitable panel & install it later if you wish. For more on Aliasing please read this.

Q Where can I use my floatplanes in FS2002?

A There's plenty of selectable water bases in FS2002. Run the sim & click LIBRARY/HELP.
Click the View Help Topics button & type water runways in the INDEX for a full list.

Error messages when installing some FS2000 aircraft

The same 2 problems keep cropping up. I'm hoping this might help explain them

Error # 1
3rd Party software not compatible

Q1 Some of the aircraft I try to use in FS2002, don't work. I get a message saying something along the lines of "your third party software is incompatible, Flight Sim will continue to run, but your third party software will be disabled.
Is there any way of making this software work?
Q2 I'm having a similar problem. FS2k2 seems to be having problems with the gauge files on these aircraft. In case it's relevant, I'm running Win98 on a 500MHz Celeron. A mate running XP Pro on a 1.4GHz P4 had the same problem.
Any advice gratefully received - I'm missing out on a beautiful looking DC-2


A OK, here's what I found. Installed the DC-2 mentioned in Q2 in my usual way, fired up FS2002 & saw this.



From this error message, FSSound.dll is obviously not compatible with FS2002. To find out more I clicked No & selected the Douglas DC-2 KLM PH-AKG. Here's what showed up plus about 20 more like it.



The gauges & switches shown in the 2nd error message won't work without FSSound.dll.
Without those gauges the engines won't start. Classic Catch 22.....!!!

I have since discovered that this is not a new problem nor is it restricted to the DC-2.
Adding this entry to FS2002.CFG will stop all those error messages with FSSound.dll installed.

[OLDMODULES]
fssound.dll=1

The DC-2 package includes a Flight which complicates things a little. With the supplied panel & gauges installed I found the engines refused to start even with the above entry added to FS2002.CFG. Changing to another panel fixed it.
After a lot of experimenting I think I've finally discovered the answer.

  • Install the aircraft & gauges as usual.
  • Paste FSSound.dll into the FS2002\MODULES folder.
  • Paste the complete Pilots folder into the FS2002 main directory folder.

The Pilots folder complete with files must be installed. Although this particular Flight can be selected & will load if installed to the correct FS2002 folder I couldn't get the engines to start.

Apart from the Flight bug the 3 different versions of the DC-2 work fine for me including the panel & gauges.
I'm using WinMe so can't be sure if the MDL will need patching with the FS2000 MDL Repair Utility mentioned below to show up in Win2000/XP.
Maybe someone can confirm this either way. I think we're finally getting somewhere. :)

Error # 2 Visual model could not be displayed
Q I am running FS2002 on WinXP and I have a problem with the model showing up on some aircraft. The plane is listed but there is no picture in the box. When you hit OK it says unable to display model.
I've used them before without problem in Win98. Any suggestions?

A Some imported aircraft designed for FS98/2000 are not compatible with Win2000 & WinXp. They will be listed on the FS2002 menu but when selected the visual model is not displayed in the preview window or the sim.
You will also get an error message similar to this.


(Example is a typical error message for the purposes of this article. The actual aircraft shown may or may not be affected)

As I understand it, the problem is with aircraft animated with early versions of Abacus Aircraft Animator.
The non-compatability issue is with the aircraft MDL file & Windows2000/WinXP.
This problem is NOT confined a specific MS sim.

There's a utility posted in the Simviation Misc section to fix this bug. MDL Repair Utility here
Until recently there was a different fix posted on the Abacus website. (AbacusMDLFix.zip)

My "guinea pigs" have had 100% success using both utilities with various combinations of CFS1, FS2000, CFS2 & FS2002 in Win2000 & WinXP. I'm using WinMe so unfortunately can't test it on my own system.
People I trust have tried it for me & it worked for them. It can't hurt to try it as the aircraft don't work anyway.

NOTE: This fix is for Win2000 or WinXP ONLY. It won't work & is not necessary in Win9X/Me.

To the best of my knowledge the original Abacus fix has never been updated. Although my testers confim it works for all MS sims in Win2000 & XP the file appears to have been recently removed for some unknown reason.


© Grumpy's Lair 2003