Hi folks,I currently run XP x64 and have got myself a copy of the Windows 7 RC (64 bit edition) which I'm probably going to set up for a bit of fun this weekend - just to see what it's like... It will be on a separate disk to avoid problems and I will set this disk to be "invisible" to XP...If I want to try and test with FS9, without damaging my installation under XP, do I need install FS9 under Windows 7 separately onto the testing disk or can I direct W7 to the original copy - ie. can FS9 exist in the registries of both OS and have two different fs9.cfg files etc.? I could have two .exe files - FS9_W7.exe and FS9_XP.exe...Does anyone have info about the following programs / addons in W7 (or Vista, since it should be similar):FS9 (patched to 9.1)ActiveSky 6.5AIsmooth / AISeparationFSACARSCH Control ManagerFSHotSFXAerosoft's BAe (and FMC system)Matrox Desktop manager (for DH2G)Avast Antivirus (Home)The PC spec is as follows, if anybody knows any driver issues for any of the components, please chime in!Intel C2D E8600 @ 4.33GHz4GB Patriot Viper DDR3nVidia GTX280 GFX cardASUS Rampage Extreme MoBoCreative XFi soundCH Controls (yoke, throttles and pedals)Any info or advice (or links to stuff) would be much appreciated. I'm not really sure of what issues I'll encounter - I know XP backwards by now but my knowledge of Vista is very limited!Cheers,Geoff

Hi Jeff,I'm pretty well on Win7 full time now - the odd little nuance aside, it's really great! If your hardware is setup for it, go with the x64 version.I've not found any significant issues using FS9 on W7, and I am pretty certain that performance is better - it certainly feels better. Same can be said with FSX, although I can't crank the settings up all the way still. DX10 mode seems to be better too. Back to the topic though;You could use a single FS9 installation between the two OSes - but you're setting yourself up for a bit of a headache as I am sure some payware looks at OS as much as hardware in its validation. You'll need to reinstall all of those for a start, over the original install. And, since you're (rightly!) using W7 for testing, then you should really leave the XPFS9 installation alone under Win7. You may want to consider this quick and dirty method though - rather than reinstall FS9 to its own separate directory unique to Win 7, copy over the existing installation, and then export the reg entry in XP out (found in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\MicrosoftGames\Flight Simulator). Import that back into W7, changing the EXE path to your new directory. That will at least get you back up and running with FS9. You'll still have issues with payware maybe not liking this new directory (Level D 767 for example gave me bad licence and locked me out of FS until I reinstalled that. PSS's 757, aside from the load manager and fuel planner not liking x64, but there's a fix for that, ran without a hitch). Don't forget you'd also need to check your scenery.cfg for entries, making sure they reflect the new path.If you really want to stick with the one directory, I think you can assign FS to use two different configs for W7 and XP - but you'd do these instead via a desktop shortcut pointing the command line to \FS9.exe /config_file_cfg_name. I can't be certain of that, but something does stick in my mind reading that many years ago.I can't tell you what problems (if any) your listed software below would have - I use my ActiveSky via WideFS, but can tell you that has no problems under Vista 32.I'd check with Matrox re their compatibility for Windows 7 though; whilst most software that works in Vista will run OK in 7, hardware can be a little different.One last thought - when you say you're intending to make Windows 7 "invisible" to XP, where are you going with that? Win7 is going to carry the bootloader, the stage at which you boot into your OS; XP may have issues with that if it cannot see the bootloader, in sort of the same way Win98 had problems booting from an XP/98 dual boot when XP was formatted with NTFS

Hi,Thanks for the helpful information. I'll be having a try this weekend :)

You may want to consider this quick and dirty method though.

I was probably going to go for the method of installing the base files and payware addons and then overwriting witha copy of the original install (with careful attention to scenery.cfg paths etc)

One last thought - when you say you're intending to make Windows 7 "invisible" to XP, where are you going with that? Win7 is going to carry the bootloader, the stage at which you boot into your OS; XP may have issues with that if it cannot see the bootloader, in sort of the same way Win98 had problems booting from an XP/98 dual boot when XP was formatted with NTFS

Like this: http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/127417-s...oot-delete.htmlMakes XP see that drive as offline so it doesn't mess with anything on there... I Hope!Cheers,Geoff