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I just updated to Windows XP, and now FS runs slower. Has this happened to anyone else? should I reinstall FS?

I started with Windows ME myself, and since I upgraded to Windows XP, personally I found everything runs faster.  

You might want to check your graphics driver though and update them again.  When I upgraded, I noticed that my old drivers didnt work (because they were designed for my old OS), and my video card was running off the drivers that xp came with.  

I just updated to Windows XP, and now FS runs slower. Has this happened to anyone else? should I reinstall FS?

With everything working right you should get better performance with XP. It has better handling of memory. When I first got it I had a game that was impossible to run on W98. On XP it ran perfectly. Check all your drivers and make sure you have the correct version of everything. You also may want to update Direct X also.

You may also want to check your hardware. If you don't have much memory then XP may be taking more than your old OS. XP needs a lot of RAM to run properly.

Actually I believe in starting a new OS from scratch. Some people have had good luck with updated OS's but others have nothing but problems.

You may also want to check your hardware. If you don't have much memory then XP may be taking more than your old OS. XP needs a lot of RAM to run properly.

256 is the minimum...for FS you want at least 512...

Thanks for the info guys, I forgot all about video card drivers. The system in question has 384 MB of ram, but it is my old one, I am almost done building a new one that has 512 of ram. I only loaded XP on it for the heck of it. Also, everything does run faster, except for FS. I will download new drivers, thats probably what it is.

Actually, XP will run many "games" a bit slower than '98.

However when you factor in the additional RAM XP can utilize an its stability, the couple of FPS you might lose is more than made up for by a smoother running and more stable app.
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Also you must remember XP is RAM hungry in itself! It uses someting like 200MB RAM just to operate, so on a system with 384Mb RAM your basically flying with 184 MB RAM (or somewhere around there) really not enough for FS9.

There are many things to increase system performance, turning off all of XPs eye candy (rounded buttons, themes, unneeded icons in the system tray, cool little menu effects etc)
Also go and get FSAutoStart if you don't already have it, it will shut down everything you don't need and free up a bunch of RAM.

There ae many XP tweaks and many XP services that simply are not needed that eat up resources. Here is a good site to check out for some common tweaks many I have used with good results:

http://www.blackviper.com/index.html

I turned off a lot of the eye candy the first time I ran XP, Im still getting used to using it, its a bit different. Also, I updated the video driver, and that brought it back to about the way it was before. With any luck, my new system will be up and running in a day or to. Thanks for all the info guys.

I started with Windows ME myself, and since I upgraded to Windows XP, personally I found everything runs faster.

That is because ME was a lemon...