I have been running FS2002 with Win98SE for a few months now, and find that it plays quite well (FPS, etc, but perhaps a little slow at loading up (Base install) aircraft etc) I have the chance to run WinXP home on this machine, and was wondering if anyone has had the chance to compare WinSE and WinXP home ed. If there is no improvement, It may be as well to stick with Win 98SE, as FS2002 would be the only reason I would be thinking of upgrading. Cheers Chris

Why not install WinXP with a dualboot option? It's really easy to do - the XP installer does all the work. That will give you the chance to test it yourself and you won't be relying on the rest of us unsavory characters for subjective opinions. But since you asked, my subjective opinion is that there won't be much of a difference with FS2002 but the stability alone with WinXP makes it worth installing.TripNorthwood 2.2a at 2.72Ghz Abit TH7II-R512MB Samsung 40ns PC800Gainward GF4 Ti4200 300/57030.30's DX8.1 WinXP ProInwin case / Enermax 431W PSU3DMark2001SE = 12055http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=4088814

I wouldn't bother upgrading just for FS2002, if your only complaint is during the initial load of FS2002. Several things affect the load up times; what you might have running in the background (those nasty little programs in your SysTray (clock window)), and the amount of addons you have installed into FS2002. I would throughly conduct scandisk and disk defragmentation, turn off those extra not need programs, and use Win98SE on your laptop. Visit http://www2.whidbey.net/djdenham/index.htm for assistance in eliminating those processor hogs.I noticed you are using Dell 8000. How do you like carrying around a laptop as heavy as your suitcase?:-lol I use to carry a Dell 7000 before I retired and I am glad I had to turn it in, not that it was a bad computer, but it was so darn heavy!

Lol!, yes she is heavy, tho its half a kilo lighter than the 7500 it replaced, but wouldnt part with it for what comes with it :-) infact looking at doing a processor upgrade soon to better cope with FS2002. I have a special start up profile when I use FS2002, and absolutly nothing loads, except explorer,zone alarm (for online crashing) and FS. Drive is regularly defragged monthly. I just find that with no addon aircraft or scenery, its still slow to load up or change aircraft, much slower than FS98. There again , look at the features in 2002, and I guess that largley explains why :-) Thanks for the reply

My advise: don't bother with the upgrade.You won't find any performance improvement for FS2K2 ("some" say it's even slightly worse), and if you have a stable system now for Flightsimming: stay with it.ALthough by itself, WindowXP is a more stable OS than WIndows98SE, but there are numerous post about people having problems with FS2K2, usually caused by bad (or even non-existing) controller drivers for XP.Rob

There was a nice review of FS2K2 performance with various operating systems not that long ago, which was linked through the AVSIM homepage. I can't find it now, but maybe someone else can provide the link. Bottom line was that each system had it's own ups and downs depending on the application. I personally run FS2K2 using both XP pro and home. I have had no problems whatsoever.

Thanks for all the replies. I have toyed with the idea of a dual boot system, may try this first. If there is no loading time improvement, guess Win98SE still reigns supreme for FS. As my system is due for its yearly format, I'll just reload Win98SE and be happy :-) Cheers Chris

ChrisI'm running FS2002 on a dual boot Win98SE/WinXP machine, AMD TB 1.1GHZ, Asus A7V, GForce 3, and 512MB ram. My experience is that FS2002 performs better with Win98SE.

Hey Chris,I personally run FS2002 on a Windows XP Home OS with no flaws whatsoever. I also find the added bonus of the advanced RAM management in Windows XP very useful for when running both FS2002 and Paint Shop Pro or similar at the same time.

WindowsXP has been wonderful for me, I was getting blue screen crashes and lockups frequently, sometimes several times a session. I have not had to use the reset button one time since istalling XP almost a month ago..no difference in the way FS2002 runs but an enormous difference in stability..JamesJ