Hello!I'm running 2k2 on WinME on a P4 1.4G, 256RAM, GeForce2 64meg with about 60% of my HD free.I've been told that:1. I can easily install XP over ME without having any probs.2. After doing this I should be able to get FS9 to run well, with possibly a bit more memory. As my system is, 2k2 runs much better than FS9.I know very little about computers - apart from installing a few simple add-ons, programs,etc.Any thoughts/advice?http://online.vatsimindicators.net/916312/3.png

Gavin,Don't count on XP to somehow boost your FS9 experience. The hassle may not be worth the final result. People upgrade to XP because it is simply a much better operating system. No matter how crappy I think WinMe is I personally elected to leave it alone on my old PC but of course went with the XP on my new PC.Moje dwa grosze..Powodzenia.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

Micha

If you do upgrade, I would get at least 256MB more RAM. Also, I would do a clean install. This is just my personal opinion based on experience, YMMV.

Thanks Ken!http://online.vatsimindicators.net/916312/3.png

WinZP needs 512MB especially for games (works OK with 384MB for just office-type apps). Compaq were actually selling PCs with 128MB, with XP pre-installed (I know because we received a bunch of those back where I worked and I was forced to set them up. ugh).With 256MB I'd stick with a 9x-based OS like ME. Actually, if ME is working fine, I'd leave it alone. The main advantage of XP is that it's far more stable and reliable.

Changing to XP does not guarantee any extra stability or reliability.Never in the history of FS (from the original Sublogic FS on the C64 to today) has there been so many technical problems with FS until the arrival of WinXP. It is the primary cause of the persistent problems reported on these and other Forums.I have a dedicated flightsim PC - absolutely nothing else on it.My homebuilt cockpit runs FS2004 (as it did previous versions) flawlessly on Win98 First Edition. This includes countless addons, two graphics cards, three monitors, Go-Flight modules, Yoke/pedals/, homebuilt throttles, flaps, switches and buttons, USB converters, USB hubs.I went with all the hype for XP Home and, later, XP Pro and in both instances I spent several weeks of misery resulting in not being able to complete even one flight.I reverted to Win98 FE and all returned to normal.I'm well aware that there are people out there who say they have no trouble with XP. Problem is thousands do.If the next version of FS will only run on XP I will not be getting it. I prefer to jump into the cockpit and fly and not have to tinker.

The problem isn't the OS but the increasing complexity of the sim and the hardware it runs on. If you have problems with WinXP it's most likely due to user error or the use outdated legacy hardware and drivers.The WinNT kernel is far more reliable and crash-resistent. I'd never go back to Win9x which you had to reboot once/day and reformat 3-4 times a year just to keep it going...not to mention, most hardware manufacturers no longer provide up-to-date drivrs for this ancient OS.

"I'd never go back to Win9x which you had to reboot once/day and reformat 3-4 times a year just to keep it going...not to mention, most hardware manufacturers no longer provide up-to-date drivrs for this ancient OS."Going into my third decade servicing PC's, and having worked with all O/S's, I find comments like this one very misleading. I have one 98 system--my core simming system--which has not been reformatted since it's birth in '99. At work, until our last 98 PC was retired a few years ago, I had not one PC at the office down for a reformat and perhaps once a month I'd receive a call ticket over an exception--for all of our 98 boxes combined.My own desktop hasn't thrown an exception in recent memory. I don't apply any more due diligence than I do the 2000 boxes and XP laptops I service at the office. I just use common sense--I don't load up junk on my PC's, and I don't let junk get loaded by exposing them to sources of "drive by downloads" (i.e. spyware). I also don't allow myself to get into the rut of loading the "driver of the week" just because it's available for download. IOTW, I follow the "if it ain't broke...." rule that is gospel in my profession.Certainly Winnt, Win2000 and WinXP have evolved far beyond Win 98. But their stability is also due, in part, to the lockdown of some of the more sensitive parts of the O/S from overzealous developers that replaced the core windows components with their own--one of 9x's biggest failings. But even Win2000 can be made to crash, and crash hard. I recently allowed a vendor to demo some software. After the demo, they uninstalled their package. I thought nothing of it until some weeks later, I was getting odd exceptions and freezes and "missing dll" errors. I ran a nice utility called "Filemon" that looks for calls to files made by various apps, and found that the demo had changed the pointers to registered dll's in the system32 folder. When the demo was uninstalled, the uninstall routine deleted the demo, but didn't revert the registry pointers. As long as third-party software can change pointers to core dll's, any O/S can be made to crumble.I know quite a few hard core simmers and gamers that run 98SE. I run it for very sentimental reasons--in 99, to distract myself from a hard pregnancy my wife was enduring, I built a PC for FS98. I haven't been able to part with it since, even though it's old and slow. Every MSFS release I keep saying I'm going to replace it, but dang it if MSFS still runs well the way I like to run it. As for driver updates, most still running 98 don't care that HW mfrs leave it behind on the driver update list--what they have works and even if a new driver eeks out a few microfps, it ain't worth the heartache. In conclusion and IMHO, people who complained of crashes and constant issues with 98SE simply didn't know what the heck they were doing. I consider it, after XP, Microsoft's best O/S in terms of how efficiently it ran when left alone.-John

"I'd never go back to Win9x which you had to reboot once/day and reformat 3-4 times a year just to keep it going...not to mention, most hardware manufacturers no longer provide up-to-date drivrs for this ancient OS."Well, JimmiG, you may have had to reboot and reformat that often but I never had to at all. I'm a bit of a fanatical flightsimmer :-) and my FS PC is on all day everyday for years. The only times it has been down is to install new up-to-date hardware. I don't know what manufacturers you are referring to but all my current hardware has up-to-date drivers for Win9X.There is nothing wrong with FS2004 . All the unnecessary junk that comes with XP coupled with its dictatorial and unforgiving attitude to users is the problem.Yes, Win98FE may be "ancient" but it does it for me and I control IT and and tell IT what I want IT to do - not the other way around.

Hi John, thanks a lot for this great analysis. So well put! I can agree with Jimmy on one point and that is regarding new mainboard drivers. Only Via has win9x options. Thanks again, good luck and kind regards Jaap