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Introduction

AVX Sorter is a desktop add-on manager for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020/2024 and X-Plane 11/12. It scans your Community folders and X-Plane installs, classifies packages, and gives you dedicated views for aircraft, liveries, airports, scenery, utilities, AI sorting, and health diagnostics.

AVX Sorter is built to be non-destructive during normal management workflows:

  • Scans and reviews never delete add-on content.
  • AI Sort shows a full preview, uses preflight checks, staged moves, and rollback safety.
  • Add-ons installed by external managers (Orbx Central, Aerosoft One, iniBuilds, Contrail) are detected and protected by default.
  • Manual classification and livery-link decisions are saved for future scans.

Installation

Download the latest installer from the customer releases page and run it. AVX Sorter installs per-user by default and supports in-app update checks and update banners.

# Windows silent install
AVX-Sorter-Setup-<version>.exe /S

First launch

On a fresh install, the startup flow is:

  • Legal acceptance — EULA, Privacy Policy, and Terms.
  • Licence sign-in — activate with your AVX Sorter key.
  • Onboarding wizard — Welcome → Folder setup → Scan mode → Ready.
Legal acceptance is remembered for that local machine / user profile, so you only do it once per PC.

Scanning your sims

Use Settings to configure your scan paths, then click Apply & scan to start indexing.

  • AVX detects your MSFS Packages path and includes both Community and Community2024.
  • X-Plane 11 and 12 installs (Steam and standalone) are auto-detected — or pick the install folder manually.
  • You can also choose paths manually if needed.

Scan modes:

  • Full scan — includes thumbnails and folder sizes.
  • Fast scan — skips thumbnails and sizes for speed.

Managing add-ons

AVX Sorter is organised into focused areas:

  • Dashboard — global library overview, filters, search, disk map, and review prompts.
  • Classification Review — classify add-on type and link liveries to their parent aircraft.
  • Hangar — aircraft-focused view with livery-aware filtering.
  • Livery Closet — linked / unassigned views plus custom livery collections.
  • Utilities Bay — utility metadata enrichment and utility toggles.
  • Airport Map — mapped airport globe with scenery pins and review / ignore flows.
  • Flight Prep — enable exactly what a route needs from a SimBrief or .pln plan.
  • AI Sort — safe folder normalisation with preview and undo support.
  • Optimizer — Community relocator, addon profiles, cache cleaning, deduplication.
  • Health — watcher state, Crash Hunt, CTD Doctor, and an exportable support report.
  • X-Plane workspace — scenery intelligence, aircraft and plugin views for XP11/12.

Enable & disable

Enable / disable works differently per simulator — and both are fully reversible:

  • MSFS — disabling physically moves the folder out of Community into a managed disabled location, so the sim genuinely stops loading it. Re-enabling moves it back.
  • X-Plane scenery — toggles use SCENERY_PACK_DISABLED lines in scenery_packs.ini; folders are never renamed or moved.
  • Neither action is an uninstall — nothing is ever deleted.

Addon Profiles

Save your current enabled/disabled setup as a named profile — "VFR Europe", "Long-haul", "Vanilla" — and switch whole configurations in one click from the Optimizer.

  • Smart Group presets build profiles automatically (with an FPS impact preview).
  • Applying a profile backs up your current setup first, so you can always switch back.
  • Flight Prep can also enable exactly what one route needs and restore afterwards.

Conflicts

AVX flags the most common conflict sources automatically:

  • Duplicate airports — the Airport Map flags sceneries claiming the same ICAO.
  • X-Plane load-order issues — Scenery Intelligence finds airports buried below Global Airports, ortho above overlays, duplicate ICAOs, and missing folders.
  • Package duplicates — the Optimizer's deduplicator spots the same add-on installed twice.
  • For crashes, run Crash Hunt in Health to isolate the culprit add-on.

Airport Map

Airport Map currently provides:

  • A 3D globe for mappable airport add-ons.
  • Search by ICAO, name, or creator.
  • Scenery pins — non-airport scenery (landmarks, cities, mesh) gets emerald pins you place yourself with "Place on map".
  • A "needs review" list for items without reliable coordinates.
  • Manual ICAO assignment (offline search with optional online lookup).
  • Duplicate-ICAO detection plus ignore / restore controls.

AI Sort

AI Sort safely normalises your folder structure with full undo support. It:

  • Builds a move plan from your scanned add-on structure and categories.
  • Shows a full preview before touching anything — what moves where, what stays, what's protected.
  • Protects externally managed add-ons — packages installed by Orbx Central, Aerosoft One, iniBuilds or Contrail (and junction links) are skipped unless you explicitly opt in.
  • Runs preflight validation before applying any moves.
  • Applies staged two-phase moves with automatic rollback — interrupted runs recover on the next scan.
  • Stores history and supports one-click undo of the last successful run.
  • Never deletes or modifies files — folders are only moved inside Community.

X-Plane

Switch to the X-Plane workspace from the simulator switcher in the title bar. AVX auto-detects X-Plane 11 and 12 installs (Steam and standalone, multiple installs supported).

Scenery Intelligence manages scenery_packs.ini for you:

  • Classifies every pack from its contents (apt.dat, library.txt, DSF/terrain) — not just folder names.
  • Finds airports buried below Global Airports, ortho above overlays, missing folders, and duplicate ICAOs — and explains why each one matters.
  • Repairs the load order with a timestamped backup first; one-click restore any time.
  • Understands XP12's *GLOBAL_AIRPORTS* entry and absolute paths on other drives.
  • Ortho4XP & AutoOrtho are first-class — zOrtho tiles, yOrtho overlays and z_ao mounts land in the correct tier automatically.
  • Drag-and-drop priority editing and enable/disable without renaming folders.

Aircraft and plugin views list your fleet and installed plugins, and scanning is fully async with caching — thousands of ortho tiles scan in seconds.

Health Monitor

The Health view includes:

  • File-watcher status and watched paths.
  • Last scan timing and indexed totals.
  • Sort-history summary and undo availability.
  • Overall status (healthy, warning, error) with an issue list.
  • A redacted diagnostics preview / export for support.

Changelog

v0.9.8 — ✈️ X-Plane 11 & 12 + the trust layer

  • X-Plane 11 & 12 support — flip between MSFS and X-Plane from the title bar. Installs are auto-detected (Steam & standalone), each sim gets its own workspace.
  • Scenery Intelligence — classifies every scenery pack from its contents, finds airports buried below Global Airports and ortho above overlays, and repairs scenery_packs.ini with a timestamped backup first. Ortho4XP & AutoOrtho are first-class.
  • Scenery category (MSFS) — landmarks, city packs and mesh get their own category with globe pins you place yourself. No more fake ICAO codes.
  • Trust layer — add-ons installed by Orbx Central, Aerosoft One, iniBuilds or Contrail are auto-detected and protected from AI Sort; every sort shows a full preview first, and undo is bulletproof with crash-safe recovery.
  • Thumbnail fixes — real thumbnail.jpg beats blurry thumbnail_button.jpg, and manually chosen thumbnails survive every rescan.

v0.9.7 — 🎯 Crash Hunt, Command Palette & more

  • Crash Hunt — a guided wizard in Health that finds the add-on crashing your sim. AVX halves your library each round, you report crash / no crash, and it narrows down to a confirmed culprit. Pins keep must-have add-ons enabled, the hunt survives app restarts, and Abort restores everything instantly.
  • Command Palette (Ctrl+K) — fuzzy-search any add-on or section from anywhere; enable/disable, open the folder, or jump straight to it.
  • Flight Prep .pln import — load plans from the MSFS World Map, Navigraph or Little Navmap; no SimBrief account needed.
  • Library disk map — a treemap on the Dashboard shows every add-on sized by disk footprint, colored by category.

v0.9.6 — 🧰 Bulk power tools + a faster, smarter closet

  • Thanks to @maarten0507 — once again spot-on feedback.
  • Bulk assign liveries to an aircraft — select any number of liveries, pick a plane, done.
  • Bulk enable / disable liveries — folders + selection become one-click activation sets.
  • Duplicate airport detection — the Airport Map flags sceneries claiming the same ICAO.
  • Paste a thumbnail from the clipboard — plus a new No image filter to find liveries that need one.
  • Livery closet is fast again — big libraries (1000+ liveries) scroll and select smoothly.
  • Real repaint previews beat placeholders — livery-local thumbnails now win over generic ContentInfo images (MSFS 2024 standard).
  • Thumbnail buttons that behave — Set image opens in the addon's folder and the refresh button truly re-detects from disk.

v0.9.5 — 🖼️ Thumbnails that finally make sense

  • Thanks to @maarten0507 for the pixel-perfect detective work.
  • Set your own thumbnail — new button on aircraft and livery detail panels; pick any picture on disk, with an auto-pick reset.
  • Store / Official planes get real thumbnails — locally installed store packages now show the developer's ContentInfo thumbnail.
  • Package thumbnail always wins — ContentInfo/Thumbnail.jpg is used when it exists; no more random texture beating the real preview.
  • Deep MSFS 2024 livery previews found — Fenix-style thumbnail subfolders were below the old search depth.

v0.9.4 — 🗂️ Bulk organize + steadier drag & drop

  • Thanks once more to @maarten0507 for the closet & map feedback.
  • Multi-select liveries — tick cards (or Ctrl+click) and move the whole batch into a folder; dragging a selected card brings the rest along.
  • Multi-select airports — check sceneries in the Airport Map lists and ignore (or restore) them in bulk.
  • Drag & drop fix — organizing many liveries in one session no longer kills drag & drop.
  • Livery thumbnail fallback — liveries without any preview image now show their parent aircraft's thumbnail.

v0.9.3 — ⚡ Instant reclassify + smarter ICAO

  • Thanks again to @maarten0507 for the follow-up reports.
  • Instant aircraft & airport reclassify — no more ~30s full-library rematch when changing a package type.
  • Smarter airport ICAO detection — skips junk tokens like INTL / CITY and prefers real airport codes (inibuilds KDFW packs map correctly).
  • Confirm suggested livery links — "needs review" liveries with the right aircraft already suggested can be confirmed in one click.

v0.9.2 — ⚡ Faster livery assign + AI / Traffic

  • Shoutout to @maarten0507 for the Hangar / livery feedback that drove this release.
  • Instant livery reassignment — no more multi-second freeze after each parent-aircraft change.
  • Alphabetical aircraft dropdowns in Livery Closet and the classification wizard.
  • AI / Traffic category — passive/AI packs stay out of flyable livery matching; Hangar Flyable vs AI filters.
  • Blank-screen fix when leaving Liveries for Dashboard / Hangar / Settings.

v0.9.1 — 🧹 Large libraries + CTD Doctor cleanup

  • CTD Doctor fixed for MSFS 2024 — no more hundreds of fake “missing layout.json / Aurora” alerts on streamed store planes.
  • Pause auto-rescan — Settings toggle for huge libraries / Linker setups while you classify.
  • Quieter scans + faster classification — one-package refresh when possible; Accept all / Mark remaining Utility / Skip all links in the wizard.
  • Large library banner at 500+ addons with one-click pause.

v0.9.0 — 🛰️ Full MSFS 2024 support

  • MSFS 2024 streamed aircraft in Hangar — 2024 streams store planes from the cloud with no folders on disk. AVX now reads the streamed package list, so your Asobo / Bravo / Marketplace aircraft appear in Hangar and liveries can link to them.
  • Official2020 + Official2024 libraries — MSFS 2024 renamed its Official folders; AVX scans all of them on every install type (MS Store, Steam, custom paths).
  • Add aircraft by name — no folder to pick? Search the built-in catalog (or type any name) and pin the aircraft in Hangar instantly.
  • Community cleanup advisor — Health finds leftover .zip/.rar archives, empty folders, and unlinked liveries. One click sends clutter to the Recycle Bin.
  • Sim setup + Report a problem — Health shows exactly which sims and package folders AVX detected, and one button copies a privacy-safe support report and opens our Discord.

v0.8.9 — ✈️ Hangar Official index + reclassify UX

  • Official aircraft Hangar index — Asobo/Microsoft stock aircraft are listed and searchable in Hangar so you can manage them like the rest of your fleet.
  • Type reclassify without the wizard — fix mis-tagged packages (e.g. aircraft shown as liveries) in one step from the detail panel.
  • Enable All aircraft — bulk re-enable every parked aircraft from Hangar when you want a full fleet load.
  • Smarter aircraft-vs-livery detection so base packages are less often mis-tagged as paints.

v0.8.2 — 🩺 CTD Doctor + smarter Flight Prep

  • CTD Doctor — one click finds the known crash causes: broken layout.json files, corrupt manifests, sceneries conflicting at the same airport. Ranked by severity, one-click disable.
  • Flight Prep upgrades — recent loadouts with one-click re-apply, remembered aircraft picks per type, and an opt-in SimBrief watcher that notifies you when a new flight plan is filed.
  • Session digest — the Dashboard shows what was added, updated, or removed since your last session.
  • Storage insights — per-category size breakdown and your biggest addons at a glance.
  • Settings backup — export/import classifications, profiles, and preferences (never your license key).
  • Classification wizard, onboarding, and dialogs now translated in all 14 languages.

v0.8.1 — 🌍 Fully translated + privacy polish

  • Every page in your language — all 14 languages now cover the entire app: Hangar, Livery Closet, Airport Map, Utilities, Optimizer, Flight Prep, Settings, and every prompt. Switch instantly in Settings.
  • License key masked on the Dashboard — hover or click to reveal; stream-safe by default.
  • Discord button spacing and alignment fixes, Flight Prep banner on the Dashboard.

v0.8.0 — 🛫 Flight Prep: your sim preps itself (world first)

  • Flight Prep (Auto) — enter your SimBrief username and AVX reads your latest flight plan: it keeps your aircraft, the airline's livery, and your departure/arrival/alternate sceneries — and parks everything else for faster loading and lower VRAM. One click restores everything after the flight.
  • Flight Prep (Manual) — hand-pick exactly which addons to keep for a session; everything unchecked is safely parked.
  • Pins — mark any addon "always keep enabled" so Flight Prep never touches it. Utilities and global scenery are never disabled automatically.
  • Safe by design: nothing is deleted, folders move to a holding area next to Community, and restore survives app restarts.

v0.7.3 — 🌍 Stay signed in, toggles everywhere, 14 languages

  • Keep me signed in — your license key is remembered securely (encrypted on your PC) and the app signs you in automatically. Sign out any time from Settings.
  • Enable/disable everywhere — toggle aircraft, liveries, and airports right from their pages, plus Enable All / Disable All buttons on the Dashboard.
  • 14 languages — English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Czech, Polish, Turkish, Dutch. Auto-detects your system language; switch instantly in Settings.
  • Update banner — see new versions download live, even on the sign-in screen.
  • License key is masked in Settings (hover to reveal), refreshed sign-in screen, and stability fixes for bulk toggles.

v0.7.2 — 🔒 Now digitally signed + polish

  • Digitally signed & verified for Windows — smoother installs with fewer security warnings.
  • Sim Maintenance joins the Optimizer — one-click fixes for missing scenery (scenery indexes) and stutters (GPU shader caches).
  • Refreshed sign-in screen, cinematic aircraft detail view, animated dashboard stats, and live update progress in the sidebar.
  • Your settings now carry over automatically across updates.
  • Behind-the-scenes reliability & security hardening.

v0.7.1 — ✨ Real enable/disable, Addon Profiles & new Optimizer tools

  • Enable / Disable that actually works — flip any add-on off and it truly stops loading in MSFS (shorter load times, less memory). Works on every card: aircraft, liveries, airports, utilities. One click to bring it back — nothing is ever deleted.
  • Addon Profiles — save your setups (“VFR Europe”, “Long-haul”, “Vanilla”) and switch your whole library in one click before each flight.
  • Rolling Cache Cleaner — reclaim gigabytes of MSFS rolling cache in one click. The sim rebuilds it automatically.
  • Package Deduplicator — find add-ons installed twice across your Community folders and free the space (Recycle Bin safe).
  • Sim Maintenance — one-click fixes for missing scenery and stutters: rebuild scenery indexes and clear GPU shader caches.
  • Fresh look — animated dashboard stats, a cinematic aircraft detail view, live scan progress with a completion summary, and update progress right in the sidebar.
  • New in-app links to join the AVX community on Discord.

v0.7.0 — ✨ New: MSFS Optimizer

  • Community Relocator — move your Community folder to any drive in a few clicks. Perfect for freeing up a small SSD. AVX copies everything, links it back so MSFS reads it seamlessly, and lets you undo with one click. Works with MSFS 2020 & 2024 on Microsoft Store and Steam.
  • New MSFS Optimizer page — home for the Relocator, with more optimization tools on the way.
  • App version is now shown in the sidebar, with a live progress bar while updates install.

v0.6.6

  • Much faster scanning — especially for large Community folders.
  • Smoother performance: greatly reduced stutter/freezing while scanning.
  • Scan results are now remembered between launches, so re-scans are near-instant.
  • Fast scan is now the default; switch to Full scan any time you want folder sizes.

v0.6.5

  • Wide-ranging security & reliability hardening across the app and account system.
  • More resilient sign-in: brief network or licence-service hiccups no longer sign you out.
  • Fixed a scan that could stop early when AI thumbnails were enabled but unavailable.
  • More accurate add-on categorisation and thumbnail detection.

v0.6.4

  • Background security & reliability improvements.

v0.6.3

  • Recategorize any add-on instantly — no more full re-index just to change a category.
  • More reliable folder moves on Windows: AVX now auto-retries when a folder is briefly locked, and tells you exactly what to close (e.g. MSFS or a vendor app) if it stays in use.
  • Security: licence response signature verification hardened, and your AI key is now encrypted at rest.

v0.6.2

  • Fixed activation on newer Windows builds that reported “HWID must be 20 or more characters” — hardware-ID generation is now robust across Windows 11 versions.

v0.6.1

  • Hotfix: resolved a blank screen on launch affecting some packaged installs.

v0.6.0

  • Security hardening: filesystem path confinement, strict Content-Security-Policy, and production DevTools lockdown.
  • Binary integrity via Electron fuses (asar integrity, locked to packaged app).
  • Platform upgrade to the latest supported Electron runtime.

v0.5.0

  • Licence configuration reliability fix for packaged installs.
  • Auth terminology cleanup in user-facing messaging.
  • Release-pipeline assets aligned (.exe, .blockmap, latest.yml).

v0.4.0

  • First-run legal gate (EULA / Privacy / Terms).
  • Key-only licence sign-in flow with session checks.
  • Authenticated user indicator on the dashboard.
  • Installer branding and packaging refinements.