This sounds related. I have a brand new Gateway with an Intel I5 chip and a Nvidia 640 1 gig video card on Windows 8.1. Intially loaded FSX with no problem. However, after I loaded some third party scenery (some FS9 that worked fine with last Windiws 7 machine) it wouldfreeze on start of flight. So after several of these, I decided to umninstall and reintall the program. Guess what FSX wasn't in programs and features, so I deleyed the folders directly. Now I can't get the FSX DVD 1 to work! What's up?!