Install Flight Simulator X (FSX) on windows 8.1 PC

[Alan Sangster]

I have been trying without much success to install FSX on my PC which runs on Windows 8.1.
FSX performs OK on a laptop (Windows XP) but rather too slowly on this rather old computer. When I try to install FSX from DVD onto my faster PC I get InstallShield error 1628 - almost as soon as the installation starts.

I am aware that this error is not uncommon and I have sampled all of the relevant web suggestions
to cure it but to no avail! A Microsoft 'clean startup' as described in article ID: 331796 had no effect.

The problem seems to reduce to some sort of incompatibility between Windows 8.1 and InstallShield, which I am unable to isolate. Any suggestions?

 

[popatim]

FSX is not compatible with win8.1. MS shows a solution available (I just cant follow the link from work)
Good luck.

 

[Alan Sangster]

Like many ‘poor souls’ before me with installation problems, it seems that I have been trawling the same “installshield error 1628” and “installshield not working in 8.1” web sites, to find a solution to the failure of FSX to install on a ‘windows 8’ based computer. This has been all the more frustrating given that FSX worked fine, although in a limited fashion, on a ‘windows XP’ laptop. Here are the “solutions” I tried which did not work:

1. Purchased and installed a windows ‘scan and clean’ app (SmartPCfixer 3), which did what it claimed but did not fix the installshield problem.
2. Accessed windows 8 ‘task manager’ and located i.driver.exe and msiexec.exe to determine if still running. Ending processes had no effect.
3. In windows explorer, located ‘C:/Program Files(x86)/Common Files and
(a) Changed name of ‘installshield’ to ‘installshield1’ OR
(b) Removed ‘installshield from ‘common files’ folder
Neither scheme had any effect.
4. Performed a ‘clean startup’ as detailed in Microsoft Article ID 331796. This made no difference to installation – error 1628 still occurred.
5. Located ‘System Tools’ in explorer and clicked on ‘system restore’. Did this, but the ‘restore my computer to an earlier time’ instruction had no effect.

Having tried all of these suggested ‘solutions’ to the error 1628 difficulty, with no success, in desperation I decided to try the, to my mind, least likely solution, namely creating a new administrator account in my son’s name and logging on as my son.

THIS WORKED – FSX Installed - PROBLEM SOLVED!!! Still not sure why??