Hi, Wang:I did not add those tracks at all. But thanks for the suggestion. I am not sure what to look for.The crashes to desktop seem to be random. No rhyme or reason. Not frequent, but they do occur. All very baffling....JS

I too have downloaded the replacement railroad textures, and was considering totally reinstalling fs9 (perish the thought!!) I could not imagine reinstalling all of the good add-ons that I forget about (took me weeks when upgrading from fs2002). Haven't tested myself yet, need to find original off the disk (I am one who pays for lazyness) hopefully will solve the problem. I thought it was my computer not liking the AFCAD2 files or something!JustinMelbourne, Australia

I found the railroad original textures, put them back in and have loaded up a flight exactly like the last one that crashed (was loading textures before hitting fly now) and did a test flight with a posky 757 around melbourne, not a single problem! For those of you who are like me and overwrote the original railroad texture in fs9/scenery/world will need to look on disk 4 (if you are like me, is already in the drive!) in the scenery/world.cab folder. click on the file and winzip should open a list of all the files and you just need to search for the railroad bmp file (there is only one, near the bottom) and FS9 will be fine!I almost gave up on the computer, actually played some playstation for a couple of days until I found this post!! FS is back!JustinMelbourne, Australia

Yes, I have always had this problem with FS2004. The only possible pattern I thought I could see is that I would get dumped to desktop only when running FS2004 after a fresh boot. If I didn't re-boot after the crash to desktop then it didn't appear to happen. Again it's not that repeatable so difficult to say for sure.On occasions I get completely dumped and the machine re-boots.Disabling fast writes did resolve the black screen, send to MS message and restart issue, but that's presumably a different beast.Regards,Joe

Yeah my FS was crashing alot...........I was about to chuck my pc out the window and watch it fall the 20 feet to the driveway.

Go into the directx settings and set audio to Basic. Worked for me. Make sure you have the latest DirectX.

Hiya...I've had this problem a couple of times and traced it back to fx files in the modules folder of FS2004. As you approach any scenery that uses the fx file FS2004 just crashes to the desktop in a flash. You may or may not get an error message that points to a problem with visualfx.dll.The last time it happened it was a NOVA Smoke fx file that was doing the dirty so check what scenery you have installed and whether it uses any similar fx files.:-wave

I'm pleased to say that getting rid of the new railroad texture has fixed things here.Just repeated(twice )the flight where the problem occurred and now no problem......Dave

I just posted a thread over at Emma Field Flying Club about this same problem except mine has gone a step further...now FS9 won't load at all. It gets up to approx. 78% then goes back to desk-top. I have no new railroad files, I have the latest edition of DirectX with upgraded driver, I just put my audio to Basic (which didn't help), video card is cool (temp wise) and either I get a quick fix, un-install/re-install FS9, or look for another hobby that doesn't use a computer. Being grounded SUCKS. It's exactly the reason I got out of the Navy early.I'm not blaming MSFS COF because I can't prove nothing else is wrong, however, 2K4 is the ONLY program I'm having problems with.One question...sometimes I go overboard on downloading and installing 3rd party material, especially during a time like now with all the new AFCAD files out. (You guys out there are just too good!) Since I don't keep a list of all downloads, is there anything built into FS9 that would show the latest installations, i.e., scenery, aircraft, panels, sound, etc. Maybe I better keep a list from now on in order to backtrack.Anyway, Good luck to all of us on this.Mike

Yeah, Mike, keeping a list (or organizing your downloaded zips in some way that you can see what you've added and in what order) can mean the difference between blue skies and a world of pain. Took me more reinstalls than I care to admit before the good news finally sank in.Good luck!Wang

Now that was someting I tried several months ago, but setting audio to basic totally messed up my audio in FS2004. Screeching, popping, garbled broken voices. Sorry, that tip didn't work for me. Running Direct X9.0b, latest drivers for SBlive!, etc., etc.Regards,Joe

>Yeah, Mike, keeping a list (or organizing your downloaded>zips in some way that you can see what you've added and in>what order) can mean the difference between blue skies and a>world of pain. Took me more reinstalls than I care to admit>before the good news finally sank in.>>Good luck!>>WangHello Wang, I recieved your message via email but there was no email addy to contact you directly. Thanks for spotting the problem w/the railroad file...it was working for me so I decided to post it...it's the first 'scenery' thing I've ever tried to do...I've done a couple of aircraft repaints for personal use before, but that's it. I've just finished zip-ping up a revised version to upload to avsim.com shortly, it contains a copy of the original for those who forget to back it up. It also contains 2 versions to choose from, they're the same image but one has an alpha channel & appears a bit darker & they are both mip-ped to 9 levels...the first one I posted wasn't. I also have included 2 versions of the GDI.exe file...it's explained in the readme...but since that's part of Windows, I'll have to see if avsim wants me to remove them before they post it (due to possible copyright issues w/MS)...that may delay the posting by a day. If anyone would like me to email the zip file to them directly, send me an email...I think you'll be happy with one of the two..or maybe both?...for those of you who have been having CTD's before my file was posted, I wish you luck on pin-pointing the problem; I've read of a number of things that cause this, certain landclass's, etc.my email:[email protected]

Well here's another confirmation that the new railroad textures can cause the problem. After spending most of a day trying to work out why the sim was crashing after reaching about 56% to 59% of loading saved flights (and sometimes loading up the saved flight and actually starting) I gave up and went for a wander through the forums. After reading this thread I logged off, changed back to the original railroad texture and fired up FS9. Beautiful!!!!!!!!!! No more problems. Tony

It worked for me !Thanks a lot Justin :-)Twister