Thanks for the idea. i tryed it. and it made the new file but it didnt finish it. it just loaded the splashscreen then closed....odd. can modifying textures cause the program to not even start?
If a replacement texture was bad it could crash the sim but it seems strange that it would cause problems on starting the sim. Usually at that point it's only loading the .cfg and user interface. It doesn't start loading textures until you pick a flight and load that.
Might be time to reinstall. At least FSX is new enough that you don't have a ton of add ons and payware to reinstall.
If you do reinstall and want to try the tweaks again you might want to do them one at a time and test after each one. That way you'll know what caused the problem.