HI am building a brand new flight simulator and plan on installing both P3D v3 and P3D v4 as well as Microsoft FSX with the acceleration pack. My question is this.... Is there a preferred windows operating system for these particular simulators? By that I mean is there a preference to use Microsoft windows 7 vs 8 vs 10 or it really doesn't matter. I am asking because I want to be sure I load the right stuff the first time and not have to go back and do the installs all over again.

My plans are to use the following as well. VoxATC, FSXFlight (to use foreflight), Orbx Global, Active Sky, and SPAD to name a few.

thank you in advance for your comments and suggestions.

My personal opinion for what it is worth.

Support for W7 is gone or soon will be.

W8 on my wife's laptop was horrible - a pain.

By default, my new PC is W10 Home.  I could see no benefit to W10 Pro.

 

Franklin Duncan

 

I agree with Franklin,

Ideally, Windows 7 (support this ends in 3 years) January 2020

Next best, Windows 10.

Windows 8 and 8.1 was a disaster with the disappearing joystick issue which Microsoft refused to acknowledge, and is best avoided.

Windows 7 support already ended! Only the "extended support" is around till January 2020.

Win 7 only gets security patches. Nothing more. I had 7, 8 and 10, and 10 is by far the best.

4 hours ago, Jude Bradley said:

Ideally, Windows 7

Why? I've yet to have a problem with Win 10. I agree with swiesma that 10 is the better OS and I was previously a big advocate of Win 7.

11 minutes ago, vortex681 said:

I've yet to have a problem with Win 10

Agree. No issues with it so far for me.

MS DOS 3.1, nah, only joking, it would make the most sense to go with Win 10 on a new system, although on mine I still currently use Win 7 without issues, but I'll eventually go to 10.

Personally, I'm looking forward to all the 'these go to eleven' jokes when MS do a new OS.

While P3D is DX11 application we're OK to use W7. My guess that P3Dv5 or whatever it would be, will be DX12 at least, meaning W10 is must have

33 minutes ago, vortex681 said:

Why? I've yet to have a problem with Win 10. I agree with swiesma that 10 is the better OS and I was previously a big advocate of Win 7.

Because Windows 7 is stable and mature at this stage. Sure, I use Windows 10,but it has it's quirks and is still a bit rocky, and the fact that it's privacy is not at the same level as Windows 7 is what keeps me wary of it.

 

2 minutes ago, Jude Bradley said:

Sure, I use Windows 10,but it has it's quirks and is still a bit rocky, and the fact that it's privacy is not at the same level as Windows 7 is what keeps me wary of it.

I'm struggling to think of anything I'd refer to as "rocky" in Win 10. On my system it seems to be much slicker than Win 7 was. The privacy issues are easily (and quickly) resolved with O&O Shutup 10 which is free. Win 7 has it's own privacy issues - see here for the most recent: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/80373/20150830/windows-10-privacy-issues-extend-to-windows-8-1-7-how-to-stop-microsoft-from-collecting-more-of-your-data.htm.

Hey thanks to all of you for your input. Having been through the wringer of various windows operating systems, I guess the choice of windows 10 is inevitable. Personally, I don't like the operating system. But that may be because I am so used to Windows 7. I don't like the tracking of Windows 10 but who cares, I am only using the system for simulation, not browsing. Having said that I will venture on. Happy simming everyone!