After a hard-disk failure, and a format, I have reinstalled everything. I have started from the begining. I then tried to install Flight Simulator. The installation process went uneventfully. I then tried to load FS2004. To my surprise, it failed to take me to the main menu of Flight Simulator. It was stuck on the splash-screen. I waited for another ten minutes. Still stuck on the splash screen. I ended the process of Fs9.exe, and then did a complete re-install of FS2004. Maybe it is just my luck, but it did not work the second time. I have tried various solutions found on this forum's search function, and also the FAQ and help section of Microsoft's site. I have tried ALL the solutions listed there step-by-step. No luck.If you could PLEASE spend a moment of your time in order to help me, and some others who are experiencing the same problem, it would be highly appreciated.Thank you.Regards,Hoons.

Hi Hoons,Have you disabled all other running progs? Kill as many tasks as possible (Ken Salters FSAutostart is very good for this - go to the libraries and do an author search)You could try going to FS safe mode - by adding -SWREND to the command line on the shortcut.. this will load FS into a version independent of the hardware, but before this, as always, see if there's a driver update and install that for your graphics card!!You didnt say whether this is just base FS9 - if not, try removing the addon scenerys from the scenery.cfg - you never know, one of these may be causing FS to bennyflip. If that still doesnt work.. any ideas anyone else :-hmmm ?

"If that still doesnt work.. any ideas anyone else?"Reinstall DirectX.Greg

A few days ago when I started MSFS it would get stuck similarly... I simply found FS9.cfg and reset my default flight to the original default flight... maybe your sim is not finding aircraft that were installed previously and you may have used as default.... look for these lines in the config SITUATION=C:Documents and SettingsStevenMy DocumentsFlight Simulator Filesdefault <---- I changed this from the whatever name to default... restarted FS9 and it started up for me at that point I then reset my default plane and gate assignment and no problems since.Hope it helpsSteve

I had the exact same problem.It would start up and just hang at the Splash screen.I traced it to a problem with DirectX. And reinstalling DX9 fixed the problem.The path issue Steve mentioned is a possible cause as well, so I recommend you try that one first before trying to reinstall DX9.Regards.Ernie.