I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of my new computer, and since it will have (not by my choice) Vista 64 installed, I'm nervous about getting FSX installed correctly. I've done several searches and see that some people have no problems with Vista64 and others are frustrated. Since I have zero first hand experience with Vista, can someone who does and has a successful install of FSX please give me a start in the right direction? One thing that I see while searching the threads is that you should not install FSX under the "program files". This is the kind of info I'm looking for. If anyone can help I would really apreciate it since the whole reason for getting the new computer is using FSX. Maybe we could get a FAQ going on this subject and make it a stickey.Thanks,Steve

I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of my new computer, and since it will have (not by my choice) Vista 64 installed, I'm nervous about getting FSX installed correctly. I've done several searches and see that some people have no problems with Vista64 and others are frustrated. Since I have zero first hand experience with Vista, can someone who does and has a successful install of FSX please give me a start in the right direction? One thing that I see while searching the threads is that you should not install FSX under the "program files". This is the kind of info I'm looking for. If anyone can help I would really apreciate it since the whole reason for getting the new computer is using FSX. Maybe we could get a FAQ going on this subject and make it a stickey.Thanks,Steve

SteveMy observations are:Install Vista, SP1, SP2 and all updates.Ensure video card drivers are up to date and stable. (Single nvidia cards seem best for FSX)Disable or modify UAC before FSX install if you are comfortable doing that. Norton have a utility that modifies UAC behaviour if you don't want to disable it. You may have issues with Windows defender - but I have not seen any.Install FSX then SP1 then SP2 (or just FSX + Acceleration) Choose Run as administrator ( I defragged after FS install after running it briefly and then similarly for Acceleration)Install FSX on its own HDD but if on a single HDD then not in Program Files(x86) or Program Files - make your own folder. (BTW I have had it installed in Program Files (x86) without issue).Install add-ons (I check and defrag each add-on to make sure that they are working OK before the next one)Defrag Defrag DefragKeep other software ie non-FSX to a minimum.Use NickN's guide (links on these forums and simforum) for setting up your system including nHancer (optional) and how to defrag optimally.Other posters may have different opinions and I respect those too.IMHO converting FS9 stuff to FSX invites troubleRegardsPeterH

SteveMy observations are:Install Vista, SP1, SP2 and all updates.Ensure video card drivers are up to date and stable. (Single nvidia cards seem best for FSX)Disable or modify UAC before FSX install if you are comfortable doing that. Norton have a utility that modifies UAC behaviour if you don't want to disable it. You may have issues with Windows defender - but I have not seen any.Install FSX then SP1 then SP2 (or just FSX + Acceleration) Choose Run as administrator ( I defragged after FS install after running it briefly and then similarly for Acceleration)Install FSX on its own HDD but if on a single HDD then not in Program Files(x86) or Program Files - make your own folder. (BTW I have had it installed in Program Files (x86) without issue).Install add-ons (I check and defrag each add-on to make sure that they are working OK before the next one)Defrag Defrag DefragKeep other software ie non-FSX to a minimum.Use NickN's guide (links on these forums and simforum) for setting up your system including nHancer (optional) and how to defrag optimally.Other posters may have different opinions and I respect those too.IMHO converting FS9 stuff to FSX invites troubleRegardsPeterH

Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful reply, that's exactly the type of info I'm lookig for. As far as UAC is concerned I think I understand the basic concept. I understand that you really don't want to completely disable it for other security reasons so can you clarify what needs to be modified? I assume Windows Defender is part of Vista, is that correct? Lastly, can you tell me why you shouldn't install in the Program Files(x86) or Program Files? I assume it has to do with UAC again. I'm familiar with the other steps you listed, so those I can handle.Thanks again,Steve

Thanks for the detailed and thoughtful reply, that's exactly the type of info I'm lookig for. As far as UAC is concerned I think I understand the basic concept. I understand that you really don't want to completely disable it for other security reasons so can you clarify what needs to be modified? I assume Windows Defender is part of Vista, is that correct? Lastly, can you tell me why you shouldn't install in the Program Files(x86) or Program Files? I assume it has to do with UAC again. I'm familiar with the other steps you listed, so those I can handle.Thanks again,Steve

To answer your pointsUAC is of varying benfit to the average personal PC user - I disable it totally and have seen no adverse results (it is much more useful in a commercial network environment). To modify it most of the software programs "disable" it somewhat to allow you to install software without the interminable prompts. The Norton UAC Tool 2008.1.0.11 "modifies" the UAC so that you can install software more easily. There are also regsitry fixes which allow you to temporarily disable UAC, etc. If you turn it off whilst installing FSX etc and "run as administrator" you shouldn't have any issues. Read this: http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/pa...nt-control.aspx. and http://www.pallab.net/2008/10/12/make-vist...ng-with-norton/ and http://www.epinions.com/content_5254848644 these should make it clearer. Then you can decide either to turn it off or use it in a modified form. Oh in Vista make sure you turn off "aero" effects and disable the "Sidebar" - less resources used by the cpu.Windows defender is part of Vista but can be disconnected if you wishMost gurus say do not use the X86 folder as it is much "harder" to install some add-on software in that folder probably due to UAC and other security things built into VistaOne last thing make sure you never manually modify or delete anything from the WinSXS folder as that is where most issues with FSX and Vista can arise.Good luckRegardsPeterH

Vista's UAC, even if turned off, will still prevent a program from writing files in the Program Files directory ON ANY DRIVE/PARTITION. So if a program tries to write a config or data file in its own subdirectory under Program Files, it gets redirected to the VirtualStore directory.Also, make sure you disable Windows Aero--right click on the FSX icon, select the compatibility tab, and check the "Disable Visual Themes" and "Disable Desktop Composition" boxes.RegardsBob ScottColonel, USAF (ret)ATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VColorado Springs, CO

Installed FSX RTM on Vista32, slow 15 fps and stutters. Now on my son's desk.Set up 720 H2C per NickN. Removed Raid and installed XP SP3 on C drive and Vista32 SP2 on D drive. Installed FSX+Accel on C, 18 fps and stutters. Installed FSX+Accel on D:\Games (not Program Files), 23 fps (KSEA) and locked at 30 everywhere else and few stutters.Set up new I7 per NickN. Vista64 SP2 on C (SSD). FSX+Accel on D:\Games, 25 fps at KSEA and 55 everywhere else, no stutters, FPS Limiter locked at 30.Turning off UAC is asking for stability problems.No need to turn off Aero. When you start FSX, a little box pops up telling you Aero is turned off.SP1 for Vista fixed all the problems with Vista (actually 5 hotfixes) so you should have no problems with SP2 installed.BTW, this is with sliders full right, water low 2x. I did turn up Traffic from 70% to 80% on the I7. Liked more aircraft around.DaveNew System:Intel Core I7 920 Quadcore 2.66Ghz @ 3.6GhzAsus P6T DLX V2 X58 1366, BD Combo Plextor B310SA6GB (3x2GB) Corsair Dominator DDR3 1866C7GTHIS ATI 4890 1GB, Samsung 24", Saitek X-52 PROLogitech Z680 5.1 Speakers, G15 Keyboard, G5 MouseThermaltake Element S Case, Corsair 850TX PSUC: Intel 80GB SSD w/Vista Home 64D: WD 300GB Velocity Raptor w/FSX, F4AFE: WD 1TB Caviar Black w/DataOld System:Dell XPS 720 H2CIntel Quad Core Extreme QX6800 2.93 @ 3.73GHz4GB (2x2GB) Corsair Dominator EPP 8500C5D FSB 800MHz @ 1066MHz2x160GB WD SATA Raptors, Sound Blaster X-FiNvidia 2x8800GTX 768MB SLI, Dell 2407WFP PanelXP driver: 169.21, Vista driver: 169.25Logitech Z680 5.1 Speakers, G5 Mouse, Saitek X52C: WinXP Media Edition SP3 (SATA 0) w/ Internet/AV/Office/FS9/F4AFD: Vista SP2 (SATA 1) (Dual Boot) w/FSX3DMark06: 17,018/6992/7123/5667

Turning off UAC is asking for stability problems.

Some good advice in here apart from the above which is complete rubbish, sorry.

Installed FSX RTM on Vista32, slow 15 fps and stutters. Now on my son's desk.Set up 720 H2C per NickN. Removed Raid and installed XP SP3 on C drive and Vista32 SP2 on D drive. Installed FSX+Accel on C, 18 fps and stutters. Installed FSX+Accel on D:\Games (not Program Files), 23 fps (KSEA) and locked at 30 everywhere else and few stutters.Set up new I7 per NickN. Vista64 SP2 on C (SSD). FSX+Accel on D:\Games, 25 fps at KSEA and 55 everywhere else, no stutters, FPS Limiter locked at 30.Turning off UAC is asking for stability problems.No need to turn off Aero. When you start FSX, a little box pops up telling you Aero is turned off.SP1 for Vista fixed all the problems with Vista (actually 5 hotfixes) so you should have no problems with SP2 installed.BTW, this is with sliders full right, water low 2x. I did turn up Traffic from 70% to 80% on the I7. Liked more aircraft around.DaveNew System:Intel Core I7 920 Quadcore 2.66Ghz @ 3.6GhzAsus P6T DLX V2 X58 1366, BD Combo Plextor B310SA6GB (3x2GB) Corsair Dominator DDR3 1866C7GTHIS ATI 4890 1GB, Samsung 24", Saitek X-52 PROLogitech Z680 5.1 Speakers, G15 Keyboard, G5 MouseThermaltake Element S Case, Corsair 850TX PSUC: Intel 80GB SSD w/Vista Home 64D: WD 300GB Velocity Raptor w/FSX, F4AFE: WD 1TB Caviar Black w/DataOld System:Dell XPS 720 H2CIntel Quad Core Extreme QX6800 2.93 @ 3.73GHz4GB (2x2GB) Corsair Dominator EPP 8500C5D FSB 800MHz @ 1066MHz2x160GB WD SATA Raptors, Sound Blaster X-FiNvidia 2x8800GTX 768MB SLI, Dell 2407WFP PanelXP driver: 169.21, Vista driver: 169.25Logitech Z680 5.1 Speakers, G5 Mouse, Saitek X52C: WinXP Media Edition SP3 (SATA 0) w/ Internet/AV/Office/FS9/F4AFD: Vista SP2 (SATA 1) (Dual Boot) w/FSX3DMark06: 17,018/6992/7123/5667

Turning off UAC is not asking for stability problems. Like the other gent said , it will still prevent malicious wrighting to key areas and as long as you have anti virus and firewall setup theirs really no need for it unless you sleep with one eye open at night anyways. What you will want to do though is make sure that your drivers are completely up to date and functioning properly before you do anything. FSX works fine on XP or Vista, but FSX is like a sole entity that needs TLC in order to act right. You will never install FSX out the box and get the sliders right where you need them. Tweaks need to be made to the sliders to suit your system. The only CFG tweak I use is texture max load and Texture resolution.

Turning off UAC is asking for stability problems.

That is very odd. UAC should have very little to do with stability. What experience did you have with stability lowered with UAC off?I'll share this about disk performance on Vista 64: I had a couple of WD raptors in RAID 0 strip raid 128K blocks. One of them died after a year or so of service, and I went with a Seagate baraccuda 7200.12.My system now boots faster while FSX is a bit faster at load times too, the drive is a lot cheaper, the install was a lot simpler too (no need for special drivers). This only goes to say that RPMs and RAID are a bit like two video cards working in parallel - not always what's expected in terms of performance, certainly surprised me if reading the raw specs. I suspect the culprit was primarily the RAID overhead.In my experience, the CPU and memory make FSX tick, and I'm quite pleased with Vista's performance under SP2 on my hardware. DX10 is nice except for the couple of annoying bugs in the FSX preview with light occlusion not working right and ground markings flickering.

Agreed. Turning off UAC will not cause stability problems. If it does, you have problems elsewhere. I've been running with it off since Vista was released. For the average home user, it's not required.Also, just letting FSX disable Aero doesn't get rid of its foot print entirely. Best to disable it manually and reboot. And, I can't say enough about installing FSX anywhere else but the program files directory. Preferably it's own drive. If not, the root directory of your main drive. I'm no expert, but the majority of support issues I see for the products I own are related to this (permission issues etc) even with UAC disabled.My two cents....

To answer your pointsUAC is of varying benfit to the average personal PC user - I disable it totally and have seen no adverse results (it is much more useful in a commercial network environment). To modify it most of the software programs "disable" it somewhat to allow you to install software without the interminable prompts. The Norton UAC Tool 2008.1.0.11 "modifies" the UAC so that you can install software more easily. There are also regsitry fixes which allow you to temporarily disable UAC, etc. If you turn it off whilst installing FSX etc and "run as administrator" you shouldn't have any issues. Read this: http://community.winsupersite.com/blogs/pa...nt-control.aspx. and http://www.pallab.net/2008/10/12/make-vist...ng-with-norton/ and http://www.epinions.com/content_5254848644 these should make it clearer. Then you can decide either to turn it off or use it in a modified form. Oh in Vista make sure you turn off "aero" effects and disable the "Sidebar" - less resources used by the cpu.Windows defender is part of Vista but can be disconnected if you wishMost gurus say do not use the X86 folder as it is much "harder" to install some add-on software in that folder probably due to UAC and other security things built into VistaOne last thing make sure you never manually modify or delete anything from the WinSXS folder as that is where most issues with FSX and Vista can arise.Good luckRegardsPeterH

Thanks again Peter. I read the articles you mentioned and they did help me understand the UAC better. The NUAC looks like a good tool and especially since it's freeware. There were 2 files though, an x86 and an x64, so I'm assuming the x64 is the one for Vista64. I also did some Googling on Aero and Sidebar in Vista. I'm also assuming the x86 folder is used for 32bit programs. Next I'll investigate the WinSXS folder, good thing it'll bee a couple of weeks before my system is done so I can absorb all this good stuff :( .Steve

Next I'll investigate the WinSXS folder,

Ah the lovely SxS folder. :( If the side-by-side ever causes you trouble, you will invent new curse words to describe it.

Ok so before I install FSX on my vista64, where should I install it to? If i have Vista SP2, is it ok to install it to program files (x86)? Or do I need to put it somewhere else?I only have one hard drive so I can't give FSX it's own drive.

Thanks again Peter. I read the articles you mentioned and they did help me understand the UAC better. The NUAC looks like a good tool and especially since it's freeware. There were 2 files though, an x86 and an x64, so I'm assuming the x64 is the one for Vista64. I also did some Googling on Aero and Sidebar in Vista. I'm also assuming the x86 folder is used for 32bit programs. Next I'll investigate the WinSXS folder, good thing it'll bee a couple of weeks before my system is done so I can absorb all this good stuff :( .Steve

SteveYes the x86 folder is for 32-bit items (In my first install of FSX I had a "mix' of add-ons installed in either the x86 folder or the x64 folder - I never did work out the difference between the two!! :( Don't investigate the WinSxS folder too deeply just try to avoid corrupting it!! :( You do need to turn off Aero even though FSX turns it off when starting it still may have a memory "footprint" which could eat up cpu resources FSX may need to perform faster/smoother. (I think NickN recommended this??)Keep us up to date.RegardsPeterH

Ok so before I install FSX on my vista64, where should I install it to? If i have Vista SP2, is it ok to install it to program files (x86)? Or do I need to put it somewhere else?I only have one hard drive so I can't give FSX it's own drive.

Sounds like that's one of the "Don'ts" from what others have said. Causes problems with UAC when you install add-ons and such. It was suggested to make a folder off the rootof the drive you install it on, for example C:\Microsoft Games . Listen to me, :( now I'm giving advice and I don't even have it yet. See, you guys are great teachers.Hope that's right B) Steve

SteveYes the x86 folder is for 32-bit items (In my first install of FSX I had a "mix' of add-ons installed in either the x86 folder or the x64 folder - I never did work out the difference between the two!! :( Don't investigate the WinSxS folder too deeply just try to avoid corrupting it!! :( You do need to turn off Aero even though FSX turns it off when starting it still may have a memory "footprint" which could eat up cpu resources FSX may need to perform faster/smoother. (I think NickN recommended this??)Keep us up to date.RegardsPeterH

Got it......hands off the WinSxS folder B)