My experience with SU13 was very similar to most users who experienced download problems. However because I have a relatively slow Internet connection and have always experienced a leisurely download process I simply shut the process down on Thursday evening and waited for another day. Fortunately 12 hours later I was able to download the updates, without having to take any actions other than restarting the Sim.
I’m very glad that Microsoft have issued an apology, and I’m even happier that my sim now seems to be working well, with slightly higher frame rates, less screen tearing and improved graphics, and removal of the dreaded white spot. So I would like to thank the Microsoft team for their work on this update. Those users who are still experiencing problems have my sympathy.
However there are lessons to be learnt I believe.
This forum offers a great opportunity for communication, but it seems very one sided. Every day hundreds of users post comments, but very rarely do they receive an official reply. This update was a case in point. Once the complaints started rolling in it took a considerable time before users were provided with any official advice as to what action to take. A lot of forum members were providing advice on files to delete, and as well meaning as this advice was, it’s not really a good idea to have users deleting files from within the Sim unless this is absolutely essential. Would it not have been better for Microsoft to have an expert on duty whenever there is a Sim update, to monitor the forum and provide prompt official advice if updates start to go wrong?
Now we have the official advice on the forum. I consider myself relatively computer literate, but I wouldn’t want to start taking the actions listed unless I had to. This begs the question as to why the update system can cause problems and whether the process is robust enough. Surely if particular downloaded files are faulty the download system can automatically check them, and delete them if required. Microsoft must issue thousands of Windows downloads annually, so one would have thought that they had developed a robust file checking system. If there is not a robust testing system perhaps now is the time to write a process that will test all the files in the Sim and automatically replace any that are faulty, thus saving users from the task of individually fault finding.
Once again the Sim update process, whereby every user is forced to both download and install updates at the same time, is brought into focus. I always believed the reasoning was that all users had to have the same version of the Sim in order to correctly accept the various weather, scenery AI traffic information provided from the servers. Is this the case? How is it then that BETA users can operate for months prior to the official update? Surely if BETA users can pre install and run sim updates then other users could install their updates during a rolling period, which might take several days but would be better than the chaos of update 13. As I said earlier I’m no expert, but there must be a better system than at present.
I want to be fair to Microsoft, they have created a wonderfully immersive flight simulator experience, which has not yet been perfected. As frustrating as it is at times it still provides me with great enjoyment and I really want it to fully succeed. I think if we all worked together and communicated more fully the experience would be wonderful.
