Backing up database and sharing it...?

[J van E]

I use Plan-G to create flightsplan for Flight. I used to have FSX on my computer when I installed and setup Plan-G, however I am only using Flight now and I have uninstalled FSX. Plan-G still works perfectly though: I create my plans with it, save them and then load the plan in GMap for Flight. Great stuff.

What I wanted to ask: where exactly is the database that was created when I first used Plan-G? The thing is: when I need to reinstall my entire PC (for whatever reason) I will only install Flight and (amongst others) Plan-G but NOT FSX... So I wonder if it would be possible to make a backup of the database so that when I install it all on another PC (or a new installment of Windows) I can use Plan-G just as I do know WITHOUT the need to first install FSX ONLY to create the database...

I did find a folder called Data (in the folder Plan-G) with 4 files in it:

MEF.sdf
PlanG_FS9.sdf
PlanG_FSX.sdf
UserWaypoints.sdf

If I backup these files, will putting them in the same folder on a new PC d othe trick?

If yes: I sometimes write tutorials for Flight (on AVSIM). I would like to write a tutorial on how to use Plan-G with Flight, however a lot of Flight users don't own FSX and so they can't create a database. Is it allowed or not to make a zip of my own database and share it? Or is that utterly illegal? If so, then of course I won't do that (and I will have to skip the Plan-G tutorial).

[tim arnot]

Yes those are the four files you need.

No, you cannot distribute populated versions of them (or I would do it myself!), since that would breach the FSX licence terms.

You should be aware that v3 does not use the same database format, however it is less dependant on msfs, since it also supports x-Plane databases, which are regularly updated.

[J van E]

Ok, thanks for the reply!