Missing tabs and sliders in settings

[Lomarticus]

They're all messed up.
Since installing FS2004 clean in a new PC I cannot make changes in settings.
To change anything I have to alter fs9.cfg
None of the tabs where there are multiple setting areas are visible, even if you click where they should be, nothing happens, and you cannou use the mouse on the sliders, which are pegged at the left side of their travel.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled after a reboot in another directory and it still does not work.
I have uninstalled the VGA driver and run FS2004 in software mode and everything is still identical.

The system is an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+
Asus A8N-SLI Premium board nForce 4 SLI chipset
XFX 7800GTX Extreme edition video card
2Gb RAM (could this be a problem?)
Windows XP SP2
Clean installation of Windows and FS2004 with all patches for all hardware and all latest drivers installed.

Any ideas welcome please.

[Graycat]

Heya Lomarticus,

This may be a silly question but have you tried this:

Make a backup of your current FS9.cfg file by simply changing the file name to FS9.Bak.

Restart FS 2004 -- the program will see that the FS9.cfg file is missing and will automatically re-generate a new one.

Open the Settings and see if this works.

When I've experienced issues like this occurring this is the first thing that I do.

[Lomarticus]

Thanks, tried almost everything already...
But...
Thanks to
http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/yabb/ ... 1119894542
I deduced that it is Windowblinds software on my PC is interfering with the interface in FS2004.
You need to disable skinning software and let FS2004 run clean.
(I spent the whole day at this, at least it wasn't the new equipment, phew)

[Graycat]

Heya Lomarticus,

I'm glad you got that resolved.  A program that I've found to be very useful is FS Autostart v1.11 available on Avsim.com or Flightsim.com.  This program shuts down Windows XP programs and processes when you start FS 2004  and automatically restarts them when you close FS 2004.

Not only does it improve framerates by closing and restarting programs and XP processes while you run FS 2004, it will eliminate the need for you to go back and manually restart your other favorite programs (like Windowblinds) when you exit FS 2004.