Hi all,Can I take the liberty of encouraging each and every one of you to spend a little time reading this thread (in its entirety) at a site I came across today called 'ars technica':N.B. You will have to register to see the thread, but it is a painless exercise and only takes a few moments.http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x/.../2390974465/p/1This thread developed rapidly in response to an article published in 2003 on the same site. It also serves as a cautionary tale which, I suggest, we would all do well to heed. You may wish to read the original article to understand what all the fuss was about:http://arstechnica.com/guides/tweaks/sgp-tweaks.ars/1Since those heady days, several years ago, of reading and heeding the wisdoms expressed on the Avsim forums by a certain Joe Hanley (a.k.a. Capt'n Slarty) regarding the unecessary meddling with many of your operating system's settings, I have become an unashamedly reluctant tweaker. I do believe that my ongoing system stability and maintenance of performance (since XP's installation nearly 2 years ago) owes much to this shift in my approach and I owe him a debt of gratitude for that at least. If you can be coaxed into reading the aforementioned thread I feel sure you will learn much, as I did, and may even start to view the tweaking process in a somewhat different light. This site seems to command a high level of respect by those who, quite evidently, use it as a valuable resource of technical information and opinion. Many of the thread's contributors clearly know their subject well and one in particular, 'DriverGuru', provides some valuable insights that are certainly worth keeping in mind. I hope you find this useful. I did say I have become a reluctant tweaker, but that is not to say that I never indulge in the odd 'adjustment' here and there. I do ;). What I can say, however, is that nothing is changed without first ensuring the creation of a fall-back position and I do try, as I am sure we all do, to avoid potentially destructive modifications. Nevertheless, after reading the thread, I found myself reversing some changes made a while ago as I am now persuaded that they are either irrelevant or valueless. There are, of course, a few notable exceptions which are highlighted by several posters, so the future of Ken's FSAutoStart remains secure and deservedly so :).Mike

Mike,Interesting read. I've got a pretty beefy system as it is, and at some point, tweaking just doesn't do much. I've found myself actually causing more problems tweaking things than just letting it run. That's what the backups are for, but it makes it more problematic in the end.At some point, most of us are just going to have to accept that Flight Simulator 2004 was developed 2 years ago and the hardware that has come out since then is simply not going to be utilized properly until the next version (we hope).If you've got slower / older hardware, then it may be worth squeezing out an extra framerate or two, but in the end, you may end up punishing yourself for more than it's worth. Just my $0.02.

Mike,Excellent post and thank you for the link. Someone already had "Bobby" so I had to settle for "BobbyH":) Anyway, as a machine builder and a hardcore tweaker, I look forward to a Sunday afternoon of browsing through the forum there while the gaming machine has Landmark 1123 at 32,000 ft. on autopilot.Thank you for the information and I tend to agree with your subtle "hint" in your subject line (compulsory?) ;) Kind regards,Bobby