OK, I'm sort of wondering what it should take?It takes 5 minutes on my system from the time I select the icon until the program opens. The music starts after 4 minutes. Exiting the program the screen closes immediately, but the program remains on the taskbar for 2 minutes. During these 2 minutes, the MS TASK MANAGER 'claims' the program is 'not responding' on the APPLICATIONS tab. During loading, the TASK MANAGER on the PERFORMANCE tab shows 2 processors spiking occasionally to 100%, but a lot of 0% as well. There are long periods of no disk activity.My h/wP4 3.6 GHZ 560 processor2GB's 533 RAM500GB RAID 0 SATA II drive with scads of freespaceATI RADEON X850 XT Platinum Edition PCI-E 256MB XP Pro SP 2I did have problems installing. First, from the insertion of the first DVD it also took 5 minutes until the actual INSTALL SCREEN appeared.Secondly, I couldn't install from DVD's. Stopped and never saw the 2nd DVD. I have to copy them to a TEMP folder and install from there. That too took 5 minutes to get to the install screen, but it did install.Now when I couldn't install from DVD's I took it to my wife's system, a new Core 2 Duo 2.13 GHZ system with 2GHZ 533 memory, same RAID 0 size, and an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 LE 256MB, running XP Media Center 2005 SP2. It installed just fine from the DVD's and it opens the program in 2 minutes. Exiting is immediate.I am getting framerates of 10 - 11 frames/sec with no changes to the default, which is high for most items. The program operation appears to be OK, but selecting choices such as FLY NOW, HOME, and LESSONS do take about 1 minute to transition.I suspect something on my system IS getting in the way of the loading. I do run AV/FIREWALL/PEST PATROL/SPYWARE programs as well as a few utilities. They don't seem to bother other programs however. In addition, once FSX does exit, my system appears to be 'tired' as if the hard drive had shutdown and slow responding to mouse clicks. Trying to shutdown can take a few minutes. After 10 minutes or so this does go away. I noticed MSIEXEC (2 copies) running in the TASK MANAGER (which couldn't be shutdown) so I upgraded to 3.1 as I had seen suggested elsewhere (was running 3.0). Didn't help, but MSIEXEC doesn't appear to be there now.OH, I was running with 1 GB of RAM and upgraded to 2 GB's hoping that would help as I had almost no free RAM according to the TASK MANAGER. About all that did was get me an ACTIVATION error. However, today, that has gone away.Suggestions?One things I will try is what MS suggested for the ACTIVATION problem,==============Step 1. Clean boot for Windows XP.----------------------------------------------------When you start Microsoft Windows, typically there are a number of programs that start automatically and run in the background that may interfere with the game. These programs may include antivirus and system utility programs. When you perform a clean boot, you prevent these programs from starting automatically. To restart your computer by using a clean boot procedure, follow these steps when you are using Windows XP. Note: - You may experience a temporary loss of some services functionality when you follow these steps. Restoring the settings restores the functionality, but may result in the return of the original error message or behavior. 1. Click on Start, and then click Run. 2. In the Open box, type msconfig, and then click OK. 3. On the General tab, click Selective Startup. 4. Under Selective Startup, click to clear the following check boxes: - Process SYSTEM.INI File - Process WIN.INI File - Load Startup Items 5. On the Services tab, click to select the Hide All Microsoft Services check box.6. On the Startup Tab, click the option

60 secs from when I click on the shortcut to get to the main screen and I can instantly click Fly Now.AMD 3000+1 Gig ramSATA Drive

Well, while you were reading my message and responded I followed the MS 'clean boot' recommendations.90 seconds or so to the main screen and I can FLY NOW after it loads (or recalculates everytime) the scenery. Exiting is also instantaneous....Now, how to figure out WHICH is causing the problem, one of the 30 odd or so non-MS services, a dozen or so STARTUP items, a handfull of INI items starting, or AV/PEST PROGRAMS/FIREWALL doing me in?Didn't effect program play or FPS though...Thanks,Irv

If it helps any, I don't disable any services at all.I would start with the Firewall. I did notice some net traffic as I launched the Sim.As for startup items, hard to say without knowing what you have running. But if you don't need it while you play, turn it off.

106 seconds to startup and another 85 seconds from the menu to the cockpit.This is on a X2 4800+, 2GB Ram and 7600 GT.Pat

Not sure if it works-but I have a friend who said he reduced considrably the loading time by deselecting a lot of the default scenery that he would never fly in...http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

60 seconds from double clicking the icon to being able to interact with the game's Home / Free Flight / Missions / etc menus. Mind you, this is after a cold start or reboot of the machine - if I close FSX and start it over again, it loads in about 8 seconds due to OS caching.I'm also running an AV program (Avast) in the background with on-access scanning enabled, so that might slow FSX's file access down a bit. Which reminds me.. I should probably add FSX's installation directory to the "Do not scan" list.Edit:The important bits of my system are: Windows x64, Athlon 64 3800+ (2.4Ghz), 2GB DDR-RAM, Radeon X850XT PE and separate harddrives for OS and games.

By chance I timed the load last night: 80 seconds. Subsequent reloads are *much* faster, at about 15 seconds or less, obviously due to extensive caching in memory.Loading flights with extensive scenery can also take up to 80 seconds, so patience is required!3.4 Ghz Pentium 2 Gb RAMBest regards, Chris

I asked this before... In the time I click the desktop Icon I can go get a drink and come back to the room down the hall and the selection screen is just displaying... if I select a mission to play.. I pick up my Ibanez plug it in, play a few scales (ok alot of scales, and then its almost ready to play...)My specs are lowly P4 3ghz, ATI Radeon Pro 128MB and 512 MB ram on board.. yes its time for a new system!

Well, I can no get 90 sec. load with my standard starup.I started to see what I could shut-off by playing with MSCONFIG. First I turned off all non-MS services and re-booted. Still took 5 minutes. OK, next restored those and stopped all STARTUP items. Still took 5 minutes? Hmmm, let me verify the results and followed the MS procedure again, 90 seconds...OK, stopped WIN.INI, 5 min., just SYSTEM.INI, 5 minutes...Has to be a combo it seems. In looking closer I saw in WIN.INI [WINFAXPRO]. It was installed on the system, but since it was moved, there is no phone line, so I don't need it. WinFax also has a service that run, but I had that set to manual anyway. Since it wasn't needed, I un-installed it. Re-booted, and lo and behold, 90 sec. load time.This is illogical to me, I can't see how it could effect anything? Especially since I didn't have the service running, nor any part of it? I guess it might have removed a hook from somewhere when it was un-installed, but I surely can't tell.Not only is the loading fast, but now I also get fast menu switching and exiting is immediate too.I have not noticed any other system change though?Irv