I finally decided to install Windows XP Service Pack 2.I figured I could use the added security features and protection... besides FSX demo wouldn

Make absolutely sure that you have rebooted WinXP SP/2 enough times to allow all the installation to complete...I didn't, and experienced many of the same issues until a power outage finally forced a 'cold boot' of the machine. Imagine my surprise to discover that there were still four updates left to be installed, even though I thought it was completely done... ;)

Thank you for your help, Bill.I appreciate it. :-)I should have mentioned that I installed SP2 a couple of days ago so I have rebooted my computer a few times since then.I started doing test flights yesterday and today and immediately noticed the problem... :-(Anything else I should try?

Did it too for the same reason (the demo) :-) I had a message coming up telling me that SP1 wouldn't be supported after october anyway so...FS9 cannot work as smoothly as before because you get a lot more in memory but the difference shouldn't be too visible most of the time. What you get is abnormal. I did switch off the Windows automatic update and desactivated the security center service with services.msc. Firewall is UP of course and the AVG antivtus ON. MSN is out as I don't use it. Typing this message on Firefox without anything else (but the task manager) open I've a 176 Mb load out of 1 Gb. I would make a snapshot of the services.msc window but my XP is in French, that may not help you a lot :-).

Thank you for your suggestions, Dominique.I

Hi Guy's.Hugo,get a hold of RAM Medic from here http://www.iomatic.com/products/product.as...ductID=rammedicit's free, and will let you reclaim your system RAM before starting up FS.

Thanks, Steve.I

For me it made no difference with FS perfomance at all. I usually go into task manager and shut down what I don't need before hand. I did notice that it takes quite a bit longer for my system to boot up though. Dave________________________________________AMD Athlon 64 4000+ San Diego @ 2.6MhzNForce4-A939 mobo 1G FSB2x1G Cosair XMS Ram on dual channelsSapphire Radeon X1900XT Video Card @ XTX23" Apple Cinema Display @ 1920X1200Soundblaster Live24Saitek Cyborg EVO TrackIR4

For those here with high memory loads and "shut down" practices, in case you missed it be sure to catch the FSAutostart discussion over the last few days. It buys me a full 100 MB of memory each time I run it before starting FS9 and also defrags the memory so it can make quite a difference. Takes time to set up the first time but it's well worth it.