It is becoming more and more appealing to have a second windows operating system on a second drive to purely operate high demand games and especially MSFS.This has been discussed before but I want to take this a step further by asking a question to those in the know.Is it possible to make the second installation a custom installation ie an installation stripped of all the unneeded rubbish and purely one which has the bits needed to operate MSFS and games?Such a stripped down installation should be ultra quick with little demands on the system other than operating MSFS?Again I dont know what Im talking about :-) so experts please?Peter

Hi Peter There's an ocean of possibilities... Do you use the system for your daily things as well? What kind of system do you have: Mainboard, chipset, harddrive, etc? Just mainly consider the first/outer sectors of harddrives are the fastest and that's where you'll want to have your 'quickest data'. I use a seperate system for what you're reading now. A quiet one!! Good luck and kind regards Jaap

>Is it possible to make the second installation a custom>installation ie an installation stripped of all the unneeded>rubbish and purely one which has the bits needed to operate>MSFS and games?>Peter Not the answer you are looking for Peter but the following should interest you. I recently read an article by Fred Langa on the stripped down XP OShttp://www.informationweek.com/story/showA...icleID=51202853It seems Microsoft also offer a stripped down version -http://www.techweb.com/wire/26803979I only have one 74 gig Raptor, split into 4 partitions and I was contemplating a fresh format/start with two XP OS's on a dual boot set-up one being the stripped down version to run FS.Ray

Hi Peter; This may not be what you're looking for, but you can set up profilesto eliminate any services or programs you wish without setting it upon a seprate HD. M$ recommends the swap or page file being placed on a seprate driveif possible and I'm going to try 3 HD's on my system in the near future. Not SATA or RAID just three drives. I'm not trying to hijack your thread here.....well actually I am}( but kind of wonder what the "guru's" would think of spreading FS outover more than one drive if thats even possible. Hijack over:-) , Now back to our regular programming. Happy New Year Denny

I've long had FS spread over several drives - installation on one, FS scenery on another, and addon scenery on a third (although that is a gross oversimplification). You can move anything that has a reference in scenery .cfg, providing you change the file address to the correct location. If you search n the FS hardware forum you'll find details. Allcott

The problem with this logic is that in the end you will still need to limit services and processes running using FSautostart and other tweaks. Even in a simple install of XP you will still have processes & services running that are not necessary. I don't think this strategy will get you much. Noel

Hi Peter-I've been running FS9 on a separate drive with it's own operating system (XP Professional) for about 4 months now. Runs beautifully. All that's on D drive is FS9 w/patch, the OS and my addons-no SP2, no AV, no nothing. I've done all the tweaks (services, etc.) Very smooth- I'm really happy with it and wouldn't change a thing.Give it a try- you might like it.Mark

Hi Peter,I would recommend you set up a seperate Gaming Hardware Profile.This is different than a User profile, and is discussed over at Black Viper.I've gained quite a few FPS by implementing this strategy.Info on how to do it here:http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/xpprofiles.htmThe obvious advantage is having different configurations for different tasks.Ie:DefaultGamingSafeInternetThen each time you restart your Computer, you will be given a menu with a choice of hardware profiles to choose one. If you don't choose one, the default one loads up. This is my everyday profile.This has reclaimed for me quite a bit of CPU resources, as well as Ram.And My system is nothing to brag about, I still run the following, and it runs very well, IMHO.Athlon 1.2 ghz512 MB RamFX5600 Over Clocked Vid CardVoice Recognition through Flight AssistantRun MSFS in 1600 x 1200 32.These Harware Profiles are different than Ken's FSAutoStart.I've done tests, and my ram was not returned to me completely when I shut down services through a secondary program or through task manager, etc.... By using my own gaming Profile, I have been able to keep the most ram. This solution works best for me, and YMMV. :-)I'll be happy to help you out if you get stuck, but it is pretty straight forward if you follow the instructions.Keeps me from buying a new computer anyway. :-)The easiest method for those that don't like to tinker, and want a quick solution would be Ken's FS Autostart.Hope This helps,Joe

I run FS9 on it's own drive (Same physical drive as windows but partitioned) and it works like a charm. Key is to have a GIG of RAM or more and not much running on your windows while you are running FS..Best Wishes,[h4]Randy J. Smith[/h4]http://www.rawbw.com/~bdoolin/shinault/southparkcartmad.gif[h3]PMDG 747![/h3]Caution! Not a real pilot, but do play one on TV ;-)ASUS KV8 DLX | AMD 3200 64 | 1 GIG PC 3200 DDR | GIGABYTE 5700 ULTRA | ViewSonic VP192b 19" |

Hi PeterYes I agree with you that it becomes appealing to have 2 OS on the same system.You are asking for experts which I am not however I did exactly what you describe here... when my new system came I installed twice XP on different partitions. ( I have raid otherwise I would have done it on seperate HD's) One OS is now "bare metal" and the other one is "fully dressed" The "bare metal" OS is for use with FS and the other one for normal computer work. I am very happy with the performance, so I did not even feel the need (yet) to strip down the FS OSIt is funny to see how many solutions the earlier posters have found and even better to see that they are all happy with the way they set up their system..But.. Peter.. I did it the way you point out hereb rgds Dick