Yes, my sim is ill. Last night I downloaded aerodesigns A340 for avsim.com and a 777 with a self installer. Got them loaded and started up MSFS2k2, splash screen came up and start menu ( do use this instead of going straight into the sim). Once I put the mouse over the drop down menu for aircraft, the sim shut down. No error message, nothing. So I double clicked back on FS and the usual start up commenced. I clicked on the aircraft button, aircraft came up, I clicked on the drop down for airbus and the sim shut down, no error message. This went on for several tries before I decided to just reboot.I thought, Ok, the a/c I installed must be bad, so I uninstalled them. Rebooted and tried again. Same result. The next time I clicked on saved games and started one of MS's installed adventures, chopper tour around Grand Canyon. Hit Fly Now and waited. Started up no problem. Chopper was already idling, so I hit the alt button and changed to a Beech 1900. Crossed my fingers and hit ok, small stall then it came up, I taxied and took off. No problems. I thought OK, so maybe it is fixed. As I was climbing, I swithed a/c again and hit the A321 I know works well. It froze the machine and I got the "error, must shut down FS message" I flew Sunday and it was fine. The only changes I did was, besides the two a/c I uninstalled, was use a gauge cleaner. Found 191 megs of unclaimed gauges. Cleaned them off but put them in backup. I restarted FS and pulled up the 737. No issues. Thought that may be the issue, but when I put the gauges I took out back, the issue is still there. Is my .cfg files bad? I want to prevent having to uninstall the sim and reload everything. FSNAV was rather difficult to accept my key when I got it last year. Don't want to have to do that again. I did get some emails with that Swen worm in them, but deleted them before opening, so I dont think it was that. I have XP Pro, 733 mhz, 30 gig HD(half full), 256 mgs ram and integrated video(intel). Any ideas welcome. I guess if I can't get her fixed by this weekend, I will uninstall and reinstall a/c. Full days job.

I'm really confused as to how the sequence of events evolved. Did you first get the problem after loading the '340, or after cleaning the gauges? With what aircraft do you get the crashes to desktop? Any of the defaults, or just certain third party? And do the crashes happen the instant you select them, or after a period of time?-John