Finally bit the bullet...

[beaky]

... and re-installed FS9.
Mostly because something was wrong with the Multiplayer function... two years of simming all by my lonesome; gets dull.
Also, my FS9 folder was a bloated, moribund mess, with fragments swarming like maggots all over it.


Naturally, the program would not uninstall clean (FS9 uninstaller was MIA). And the usual hunting for the aircraft folder producing the error that was holding up deleting huge chunks of stuff... la la; what fun...

And since the #4 disc from my first install was toast, I'd bought another copy of the sim... and almost had a conniption when I found that neither my old D drive or my hastily jerry-rigged new drive would read the new #1 disc!!!
You. gotta. be. kidding.... grrrrrrrr (steam coming out of ears)....!!!
But I got it to work eventually... only took about 4 hrs... LOL

Had a little time before work tonight to try it out, and so far so good. Very strange flying the default C172 in the virgin wastes of an unadulterated FS9 install...
And- hooray!! I flew online for the first time!!!
IT WORKED!!!

That was truly bizarre... just the whole "whoa, I am the Matrix" vibe of it, plus some weirdness displaying the other aircraft (do I know you, "bird dog"?) but I think I'm going to enjoy this!!!

I'm going to very slowly and sparingly start putting add-on stuff back in... I noticed I had something like 300 planes I hadn't flown in ages, and umpteen versions of water, etc. I'm resolved to keep this install cleaner (although I probably won't for long).

[Hagar]

Naturally, the program would not uninstall clean (FS9 uninstaller was MIA).

I suspect this was cased by the auto-install feature of one or more addons overwriting Uninstal.exe in the FS9 root directory. This is a common problem with this sort of file & just one of the reasons I will keep repeating my advice not to use them until I'm blue in the face if necessary. The "install path" of auto-installers can usually be redirected to a temp folder for manual install which is much safer.

[Saitek]

It has to be done every now and again. I find that once you have done it, it actually rekindles FS and you get that new feeling all over again like when you got it.

[beaky]

It has to be done every now and again. I find that once you have done it, it actually rekindles FS and you get that new feeling all over again like when you got it.

Definitely. I'd sort of lost interest the last couple of months, although mostly due to the hanging and the stuttering and the ridiculous load times... and now that I can fly online I'm like a kid on Christmas morning.
Too bad I have so much other work to do on the PC this weekend...