Currently running XP but am considering W7. System is Intel Core 2 Duo 6600, Nvidia Gforce 9600GT 500MB, 2GB RAM.

Only if you go win 7 64bit and upgrade to 4GB+ RAM, otherwise I don't see a major benefit. I have a dual booth and get better FPS with windows 7 x64 than XP

Hmm, I would like to see that for real. In my tests there was not even 1%-change (nor positive or negative) change when tested in the same environment.Question too is also which sim.

Hmm, I would like to see that for real. In my tests there was not even 1%-change (nor positive or negative) change when tested in the same environment.Question too is also which sim.

I've had W7/64 RTM installed since it was released to academia over a month ago. I dual boot with XP64 and I found the DX10 performance to be much better than in Vista/64. In DX9, I still have a nagging issue where frames are very solid and locked at 24 but, inexplicably the scenery seems to "lope" with repeated microstutters. Still can't figure out why after numerous driver changes, playing with TBM settings etc etc. and it's the exact same install that's on my other HD. So....so I'm still using XP64 until things mature.Is it worth the upgrade just for FSX - not neccesarily at this time IMHO if you're happy with your FSX performance in XP or Vista. Overall W7 is a very snappy OS and they seemed to have it right this time. Boot/load times are great and I would easily be using it if it weren't my problems stated above.

I only wonder, the snappiness of W7: My XP is mega-tweaked, only needed servies running etc. After I configure W7, will it also be as fast...? Right now, compared to MY XP64, it seems very sluggish to me.

Many thanks for the replies.

I've been running Window 7 HP 64-bit for the past couple of days now. It certainly looks and feels better than Vista. I've not gotten to installing FS9 and I'm not sure I will. Just running idle, Win 7 will consume about 900MB to 1GB of memory (partly due to 64-bit vs 32-bit). (Disabling Aero only makes a minor difference.) On XP that was 250-300MB. Both with unnecessary things/services disabled.My printer's a bit older and its software is not compatible with 7. Another printer's software that worked with mine in XP (as per HP support), doesn't recognize my printer in 7. (Basic support is available from within 7 itself and MS Update...) I have a MS SideWinder joystick. While developed for 95/98, its software worked on XP, not in 7. A numer of programs have no 7 support. A few others no 64-bit support. (Yet.)One can not turn off auto arrange in folders...:( Once my printer's ink is all used up, I'll probably get a new AIO printer. I've already looked at Logitech joysticks and will probably get a new one eventually. Software will receive updates and/or upgrades. And minor annoyances I will just have to get used to. But clearly, this upgrade came too soon and I'm just not ready to part with XP where everything just worked. And since I've never had any out OOM errors, I don't really need 64-bit at the moment.Anyway, the pre-order upgrade was cheap enough on Amazon.co.uk, today got a mail I would get a refund as the pre-order price had dropped some more, so it's hardly wasted money, and I will upgrade eventually. But not for another couple of months.:(

I came around to installing almost everything under 7 and I can only report that basically almost everything went without any problems and everything is working as it should. I am coming from XPx64, which was pretty fast, but 7x64 is also very fast, even without disabling any services, will try that later.Right now I tried simming while background was doing some stuff, and I must report I had no stuttering and FS9 was doing very good. I can only imagine that a final tweaked system will do even better!About the 900MB using instead of 300MB, well, I have 4GB to spend, so I couldn't care less about that, and my guess is Superfetch is using a lot, preloading applications, I can report that all of my usual applications open faster, after a fresh reboot, much faster than they did under XPx64.Oh and btw. all of hardware is supported in W7, either natively or though drivers...

I've noticed that W7 actually does keep various Services disabled or set to manual. One of my first OS installation tweaks was to disable many unneeded services, but W7's default config has done most of the legwork for me already in that respect. MS finally got smart and turned off things which 99.9% of the users would not need. You may want to run through the services list in case what you tweak wasn't touched, but my experience was that I didn't have to hit any services with adjustments!You mileage may vary,-Greg

Hm weird, at my system, I have around 40 active (Automatic) services. Those were default from beginning and since then nothing changed. I decided to manually tweak them soon, as soon as I get everything to work, so that I can check if some service is causing any errors...

No way W7 will run FSX better than XP - FSX was optimized for XP. W7 won't run FSX better than a perfectly tuned Vista, either - because, in principle, W7 isn't more than a perfectly tuned Vista *g*.

To be helpful - if you aren't going to upgrade your system then stick with XP. I only changed to W7 as I upgraded the pc else I would have stayed with XP as well.If it ain't broke don't fix it :( John E

To be helpful - if you aren't going to upgrade your system then stick with XP. If it ain't broke don't fix it :( John E

My sentiments exactly! Anyway, support for XP continues until 2014 so who needs the hassle.Mike :)

I'll be getting a new PC at the end of November and seriously debated staying with 32-bit XP on the new machine. But I want to use more than 4GB of RAM, so I'll be going with 64-bit Windows 7 especially since I'll probably get a 2GB video card and that means a lot less recognized RAM with 32-bit. Very tempting to stay with the stable XP, but I might as well go with the newest OS.

I'll be getting a new PC at the end of November and seriously debated staying with 32-bit XP on the new machine. But I want to use more than 4GB of RAM, so I'll be going with 64-bit Windows 7 especially since I'll probably get a 2GB video card and that means a lot less recognized RAM with 32-bit. Very tempting to stay with the stable XP, but I might as well go with the newest OS.

I just upgraded from XP 32 bit to Win7 Pro 64 bit. OOM's were killing me so I need a 64 bit OS to better manage memory. I don't have everything in FS2004 set up yet, (re-installing everything is a major undertaking) but I like what I see in Win7 so far.FWIW, at this time I can't imagine why anyone would want to upgrade to Win 7 from WinXP 64bit. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!