Hi,My primary hard drive just failed, and I'm about to order a new Maxtor ATA 133 40 gig. Now, I found a place that will throw in XP home version for just a few dollars more when you buy the drive from them. I'm a strong believer in Win98 SE as the best OS for Flight Sim 2002. Good idea?? Bad idea?? Thanks for your ideas.Bob I

Well, you're asking for opinions and my opinion is to stay with what works. I'm on XP Home now from 2000 Pro and I've had nothing but trouble.

If you upgrade to XP, you'll need more ram. About 512mb will do just fine. You'll also be able to say goodbye to Illegal Operations and Fatal Exception Errors. Very stable OS. It's fast and works perfect with FS2002. I'd highly recommend it.

I've been running XP Pro for a few months now on a P3/800 mhz with 384 mb ram and am very satisfied with it. As noted above, it is a very stable OS. I have not once seen the dreaded blue screen of death since I upgraded to XP from ME. I used the upgrade package instead of the full package, which in the past has been a bad thing. However, I've had no problems whatsoever from using the upgrade. I would definitely recommend it, although I would also recommend at least 512 mb ram, although I'm not doing too bad with 384.KP

You'll also be able to say goodbye to Illegal Operations and Fatal Exception Errors. Very stable OSLOL, lucky B%$#!@$ ;-)I wish I was able to say goodbye to those with XP. I'm ready to go back to 2000 Pro.

Fred Did you do a clean install or just an upgrade?What type of partition are you using?This is my experience:1.3 athlon-512 RAMI upgraded from the crappy WinME, just the "Facelift" Windows XP inherited all the chaos that I had previously, even the "autodegradation" that Win Me is well known for!after that I managed to make a comprehensive back up, and with a disk of my old OS handy, I did a complete reformat of the HD, set up 4 partitions all of them NFTS (?) I had FAT32, and install Win XP in one of them, keeping the rest for my other software, and another big enough just for FS and its Add ons. Since that moment I have not experienced thst freaky blue screen anymore, I have not compatibilty problems and I also experienced a noticeable upgrade in the performance of FS2002 in terms of Frame rates, Crisper images, etc.I striongly recommend to do what I did, only if you have the capabilities to make a backup and reinstall every piece of software from scratch. A recovery disk of WIN is not enough to make a clean install so you have to check on that also.I am a newbie about those things, I came up to that conclusion after a very comprehensive research everywhere... and it worked.But, as you said, stick to what makes you happier, I think that's a wise advise.

I have 512 RAM... Fred, what do you think is giving you a problem?Bob I

No it came with my new computer :-( and they used FAT32 :-(I don't even see any disk other than a driver and recover disk.PUNKS! ;-)thanks for the advice though.

Given the fact that you are going from Win9x and doing a clean install, I would DEFINITELY go with XP. If you were contemplating an upgrade from Windows 2000 Pro, I would perhaps caution you to think twice and decide if the extra features in XP are worth the added investment (and risk that's associated with any OS upgrade). At the heart of it, XP and 2000 are built on the same kernel.Good luck with your purchase.J

> You'll also be able to say goodbye to >Illegal Operations and Fatal Exception Errors. Very stable >OS. Funny, I get the "MS has encountered an error and must close" at least once a week, I like XP,have all the updates (except SP1) but have had problems with it as well as 98SE. I did research and ended up with a fresh install, over an upgrade, of XP Pro to avoid a conflict with anything. Don't get me wrong, I like XP over 98, but I am jealous of those that NEVER have problems with it, makes you realize more that each PC is different. Like they said, it is a memory hog, especially if your using SB sound.Regards, Michaelhttp://www.geocities.com/res052cd/cmhbanner.gif

well if win98se worked for you with little problems and/or you need 98 for other programs, i would keep 98. I'm running XP pro now with fs2002pro, i love it.good luckmark

Make it a dual boot system then. This way you can always switch to the OS you like best or which you need for your soft-/hardware.I run XP home and love it. Now that I also have an XP-compatible printer I'll probably dump Win98 from the HD.GreetzS

winME for almost 2 years, never a freeze, never a blue screen, never an error or degradation of any kind. 25fps on a duron 900/tnt2 with everything max cept clouds and ai.just goes to show that it's the match between os and hardware that counts, not the hardware nor the os by itself.mp

Fred,It may not make any difference, but have you thought of converting your FAT32 partitions to NTFS ? It may make your system more stable.If you're prepared to fork out a little money, I can recommend using Partition Magic, which can convert your partitions safely and at no risk to data loss.My new PC came with WinXP Home (NTFS partition) and I've found it very stable.Hope this helps,

Thanks. Bob I