After a couple of years of flawless operation my MS Precision Pro 2 joystick decided to call it quits last night, though it had worked perfectly the night before. Briefly, here is what happened:1. After starting FS last night nothing happened when I tried to change views with the hat switch. Under "options" and "controls" the "enable joystick" button was inoperative.2. I tried the usual fixes: shutdown, restart twice.3. Followed instructions in the troubleshooting section of the user guide: reinstallation of software, complete uninstallation, then reinstallation again. Tested joystick in other USB ports. Still nothing.4. Verified USB ports working properly in device manager.The joystick does not even show up in the device manager under game controllers nor does it show up in the joystick control panel.Nowhere in the literature is it suggested that the joystick may be broken. Even if it were I would think it would be listed in the device manager.Any suggestions would be appreciated.Thanks,JoeKIAD

Well now, that is odd. Seems like you've tried most of the common things... 1. Have you tried plugging in another USB device? How about Re-initializing the fs2002.cfg file?2. Is the green light on the joystick lighting up to show it is powered? I had my power cord come undone about 1mm and I couldn't see that it was disconnected..but the stick wasn't powered. 3. Did you somehow disable the MS Sidewinder Tray from starting up...?Good luck!

I think that your's is not a hardware problem, try the 3rd in the prrevious answer, that'll do it.

>Well now, that is odd. Seems like you've tried most of the >common things... >>1. Have you tried plugging in another USB device? How >about Re-initializing the fs2002.cfg file? >>2. Is the green light on the joystick lighting up to show >it is powered? I had my power cord come undone about 1mm >and I couldn't see that it was disconnected..but the stick >wasn't powered. >>3. Did you somehow disable the MS Sidewinder Tray from >starting up...? >>Good luck! Thanks for the tips, but two questions. If I disabled the Sidewinder tray for starting up, how do i re-enable it? I'm not aware of any green light on the joystick. Is there one and where is it?Joe

I apologize... the Force-Feedback joysticks have a little LED indicating that they have power... I assumed that the Precisions did too :) As for making sure that the Sidewinder software loads when Windows 98/ME/2000 (I'm not sure about XP) loads... you'll have to check it in MsConfig :1. Click on Start --> Run --> type "msconfig" without the "". 2. Go to the tab that says "StartUp" and run down through the checkboxes... there will be lots of things (most programs that you'll recognize, some you won't). 3. Make sure that "SidewinderTrayV4" is loaded (if of course you have the Sidewinder Software Version 4 from their website, but it'll be SidewinderTrayV...). 4. If it's unchecked, then just put a check into the box and it'll start up with windows and maybe it'll fix it??!!Good luck with it, let me know if it works!