For future ref. I was gutted after spending 3 days installing FS only to get this problem. I see their are others that have also had the problem.Symptom : FS splash screen then sim quits.Talk about not seeing the wood for the trees ! I spent about 3 hours trying to fix this.Answer : Just go to an old System Restore point ! Fixed !Make sure you create regular restore points throught the install so if it all goes wrong.... No problem !

I have restore points disabled to increase performance.Have you tried an uninstall -> re-install ?

i think you need to have the "my documents" folder on your C drive, sounds like fs9 can't find the fs9.cfg file, have you moved or remaned any files from your docments and settings folder, are you logged in with the same account you used to install the game under?