Warning About Aerosoft Products For Ts [aka Railworks] (and, Perhaps, Tsw2)

Some years ago, I bought a copy of Aerosoft's "Newcastle-York Modern" route for TS via the Aerosoft website. When I moved my entire TS/TSW collection to an external hard drive, Steam did not move any non-DTG products (including those sold on Steam), so I have been gradually tracking down numerous installation files and adding them to the new "home".
A couple of days ago, I came across the installer for this Aerosoft route, but the installer would not recognize the SteamLibrary home folder or its steam sub-folder as an acceptable installation location.
I sent a message to Aerosoft asking for a solution to this problem. After initially misunderstanding my simple request, their representative, André Hein, made the following suggestion: " Did you tried (sic) renaming the folder steamlibrary to steam?" Wrongly assuming that he was the expert, I tried this seemingly simple maneuver, which apparently invalidated my entire Steam installation on the external drive. At present, Steam is in the midst of a complete re-installation, which will take the better part of 2 days (thanks to the double handicap of Steam and ATT).

Evidently, Aerosoft remains blissfully (and harmfully) ignorant of the changes that DTG has made to the structure of Steam-based installations of their products. (And, in the hope of preempting incorrect assumptions, I did download a new copy of the installer before beginning this process.

Please note that this warning applies to Aerosoft's independent releases for TS (and, possibly, TSW), not the installers of products they make directly for DTG.

 

I bought a copy of Aerosoft's "Newcastle-York Modern" route for TS via the Aerosoft website.
I though that that was published by Just Trains and sold via Aerosoft?
If so JT have a registry fix that may have helped you - or perhaps write to JT support to see if they can help.
https://support.justflight.com/supp...-was-not-detected-or-railworks-was-not-found-

Steam did not move any non-DTG products (including those sold on Steam),
I don't understand this - Steam cannot move non-DTG products even if they are subsequently sold on steam. Its just the way that the steam installer works.

It may be a little harsh to blame Aerosoft for one mishap - maybe they didn't understand your question?

Just changing a folder name to something else should not have invalidated your install - did you try to rename it back to its original name?

To my knowledge there has been NO structure change to the way Steam and TS install - what happened your case you didn't have the registry key to the route on your new system - that's why it couldn't install. It happens from time to time, unfortunately, especially with older (JT) routes.

 

So basically you have your Steam Collection in a non-standard place and that is Aerosofts fault for not understanding that?

 

No, I DO NOT have my Steam Collection in a non-standard place: some months ago, with my internal C: drive running out of space, I used an option officially provided by Steam (and, obviously, authorized by DTG) to move it to a much larger external hard drive.

 

Thanks for your comments, Peter. I bought this route package quite a few years ago directly from Aerosoft. I ran into a similar problem with another long-ago purchase from Just Trains as well and their tech support sent me a link to the registry entry work-around you mentioned, which worked with their installer, but had no effect with the Aerosoft installer and was not even mentioned by the person who answered my request for tech support at Aerosoft. When that person asked whether I had tried changing the name of the install folder, I foolishly tried that and when their installer still failed to find the renamed file (SteamLibrary to Steam), I did, of course, change its name back to SteamLibrary. The next time I attempted to launch TS2021, Steam instead initiated a complete reinstall of Railworks (that's what it's called by Steam), TSW, and TSw2, which has now been in progress for well over a day and has -- let's see -- more than another day to go, currently standing at 32.2 GB of 67.8 GB and (s-l-o-w-l-y) counting downloaded.

It's quite obvious to me that the person who responded to my tech support on the Aerosoft website had no idea about how to deal with the problem. Rather than admit this, he offered several worse-than-useless solutions. I'm not sure whether or not he understood my question, but he clearly did not know how to deal with it, although that obviously did not keep him from taking it on. I wrote this thread's OP in the hope of warning other forum members about this situation and, again, appreciate your carefully considered response.

 

I would still contact JT support - they are very good wrt any issues with their product.
Do let us know how you get on.
pH

 

DTG have nothing to do with where the game is installed on people computers.
So not "obviously, authorized by DTG"

 

So he "bought a copy of Aerosoft's "Newcastle-York Modern" route for TS via the Aerosoft website."
But you think he should contact Just Trains?
They are just a Reseller for Aerosoft products

 

I'm confused, Peter. Why should I contact Just Trains about a problem I'm having with an Aerosoft product years ago? Are they two divisions of the same company?

 

I think Peter mistakenly thought you purchased the route thru Just Trains.

 

Sorry but when you get to the Just Trains site it says "Just Trains Newcastle to York Modern route" - it does not say Aerosoft. One would presume that they developed it?? Are there two different routes? My apologies if there are!
From the GUID reference: b02738ea-5572-4849-a90d-388682f39ab2 Newcastle to York - Modern [JT] UK
From the JT Manual: Available to buy from all good software retailers and and on-line from www.justtrains.net
COPYRIGHT ©2009 Darren Porter, Just Trains. All rights reserved. Just Trains and the Just Trains logo are trademarks of Mastertronic Group Limited, 2 Stonehill, Stukeley Meadows, Huntingdon,
PE29 6ED, UK. All trademarks and brand names are trademarks or registered trademarks of the respective owners and their use herein does not imply any association or endorsement by any third party.

 

Excuse me -- did I ask you this question???

 

Maybe you did not mean to but my name is also Peter