Hi Norman,
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1. before downloading addon textures, how do you know they are supposed to apply or fit to your specific plane. Reasoning is that some do not work. eg 737-800 skin might not work on another 737-800.
"specific plane" are the key words there, a texture for the carenado B350 King Air would not work on the default B350 that comes part of FSX nor would textures for airplanes developed for other simulators (X Plane etc;) Most painters will specify what particular model the textures they painted are for usually in the file name of the textures.
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2. I have a 737-800 that works well and find the 737-800 CVA is sluggish - so I copied the cfg. file and texture from CVA into my 737-800 - but it was only black. I assume either they can't be exchanged or I just didn't do it right but from the web - it is supposed to be idiot proof - I guess I disproved that in this case. I changed the sequence number in order just so you know.....
Aircraft config files are very demanding. Assuming both your 737-800's are indeed the same model (if they aren't the config file for one won't work for the other) you have to be very accurate with your typing any typo could make the aircraft unrecognized to FSX. Make sure you have typed everything correctly and did not accidently insert an unneeded character anywhere in the file! I hope you worked on a copy of the config file, saving the original under a new name?
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3. when amending the cfg. file do you need to match the sim name in the addon to the sim name of the receiving plane cfg file or can it remain different ? also do you need to alter the model file in any way ?
In most cases you should never alter the "sim name" for any aircraft unless you specifically intend to "create" a new(changed) version of a specific aircraft Some vendors use alternate sim names if they wish to have two versions of the same aircraft with altered features like one pilot in the cockpit of one version but 2 pilots in an alternate version.
The most important thing to remember is that no two models of aircraft are "cross-compatible" unless of course the developer has simply updated his model and named it differently.
HTH!
Gary