Ok, I want to know how long it takes for you flightsimmers to startup a flight. With all my addons it's getting crazy for me. I like it though. I usually fly the irons - right now I'm flying almost exclusively the fantastic BAC 1-11 by David Maltby retrofitted with a big assortment of Reality XP gauges. Here's a typical startup (using fullscreen mode):(1) FS9 - Set up location and plane (takes a little longer because I have UT).(2) FSNavigator (loaded internally by the F9 key)Then I go to the desktop and load the following:(3) ActiveSky 2004.5 - Load the flightplan with weather(4) FlightKeeper - Set a new flight, load flightplan with weather(5) FS PassengerThis takes several minutes but the end result is a more immersive flight.3.6 ghz 800 fsb HT, 1 gig ram, ATI X800XT 256 mb card.

Same time for me, just different add-ons. I wish there was something that would load everything correctly with one click. Brad

Yes that would be nice - a batch file of some sort. With Flightkeeper you can have it load automatically on startup through their menu "Options". I don't use it though because I usually load the default plane first so it kind of defeats its purpose when I have to go back and startup a new flight anyway and load up the flightplan etc.

There is, called FSAutoStart http://www.kensalter.com/fsautostart/Great program to shut down all un-needed programs and services, start up FS, then starts all needed addons. Once your close FS it shuts down the loaded programs, restarts all the programs and services there we shut down before, then ends the FSAutoStart program.With my marginal system, I couldn't do without this great utility.

I've found that if you open FSNav in Window rather than full screen mode, it fills in world details much more quickly, though, admittedly, that might be video card and driver dependent.Sherm

Probably takes me about 5 minutes before I'm really ready to start the engines....- Run FSAutoStart, which autostarts ActiveSky2004.5 for me.- Run FSFlightKeeper (when I think of it)- Run FSEconomy if I'm aiming to do a FSEconomy flight- Unplug CH throttle quadrant (FS won't boot if it's plugged in when I boot FS)- Load Flightsim- Choose aircraft, location & flight plan- Fly now- Once sitting in aircraft, minimize FS- Plug in throttle quadrant- Run CMStart to properly configure throttle quadrant- New flight in FSFK (If I think of it)- Start flight in FSEconomy (if using it)- Return to Flightsim, finally ready to start engines and go....

I also use FS autostart. And that adds more time to startup FS. Especially that I always start twice.After the first FS autostart check the free memory. Then stop it and start it again (the second start is quicker). The free memory increases quite significantly. I do not know why and I already told Ken about it.Typically I will start with more or less free 600 meg then i will have about 750 mega free just before loading FS and a bit more than 800 mega free before loading FS the second time.Roger

I cant task switch out of FS9, maybe its my driver settings... so I first load up active sky 6, let it do its thing, load a flight plan from it, if I know where I'm going; 2nd is I make sure to run autostar to get the latest stars in the sky, thanks to tips from the kind folks in the forum I now use snapper and load that to take screenshots (cool program!!), then load up flight sim which takes a while for me too, start it, let the weather load, set the time ahead a minute to make sure all the runways are set correctly by the ATC (please let the tower switch active runways if the wind changes direction in FSX!), then go do a few things like make a snack or read for a few minutes while my gigantic traffic files do their thing and get traffic moving, come back, and start flying!

Sounds great. I'll give it a try.

...aaaand you can set up different profiles to start FS along with various different programs. So if you want to load FS only without other programs for testing etc. Also, even though it is called FS Auto start, you can use it to start just about any other game or application. Nice little utility indeed.Dave

fsautostart runs things for me too - it starts AS6, gives that a full 90s to settle, then starts fs9 which of course loads fsuipc, which in turn runs (and eventually kills) aismooth.Given the time I take just sitting at the gate prepping my preferred irs aligning fmc-driven heavies I could never load as many addons as some of you guys :)Interesting to see how diverse our setups can get.regards,Markhttp://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/markrey/lsd2.jpghttp://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a319/mar.../sup_banner.jpgXPHomeSP2/FS9.1/3.2HT/1GIG/X700pro256