Help!! FS2002 in XP problem

[Gary R.]

Well, I finally got an up to date system. AMD 2800+, 512 ram, ATI 64 DDR, and 60 gig of space. BUT, I update win 98 whoc I carried over from my old system to XP pro with the upgradable option from 98 and now I am have annoying problems with FS 2002.  It seems after I installed it in XP when I go to start FS the splash screen comes up as normal but when the normal create a flight menue loads in, the whole FS window reduces to the center left of my screen. If I go to set up a flight and click fly now, the window minimizes to the task bar and after that I can't get it opened on the screen again.  This is very annoying and even though I discovered a work around ( as in minimizing and re-opening while in the menue) its very disconcerting to think that I have this wonderfull XP and a much faster machine only to discover a quirk that didn't exist on my old system.  Has anyone else had a similar problem with FS 2002 and win XP? If so, whats the trick to stop it?  Thanks.

[Poseidon]

I have heard about a lot of people having problems with their XP (eXtra Problems  :)). Anyway I would install also Win98 on my PC and I would start with Win98 for FS. It will take space on your HD (not much though) and will need some time to install them but it will work.

[Gary R.]

i didn't know it was possible to have two os's on the same hard drive.  that is something to consider athough for me it would be self defeating.  I wanted to go XP mainly so I could aquire cool stuff like the flight1 meridian, realityxp garmins, and pss dash 8.  interesting. an OS that had no trouble running FS can't handle the highest end software expansions and the os that has troubles these expansions require.

[Hagar]

Funkycowboy. I don't have XP but I have heard of problems with the Win98 update. It seems perfectly OK if you install the full version from scratch & many people run the M$ sims on XP with no problems. You only have to look through a few threads on this forum to confirm that. I'm wondering if you're using the original Win98 install of FS2002. If so, it might be an idea to uninstall it & start again.

I believe the only way to run 2 different OS on the same drive would be to partition it. I'm told FS2002 should run better on XP so I don't see the point.

[rog54]

Hi Funkycowboy!

I realize why you probabally choose to upgrade rather than a clean install.  As a general rule most computer software guys will suggest a clean install whenever possible with full drive formating.  Upgrades can tend toward strange problems.
By doing a clean install there is another advantage.  That being, you can partition your drive and use the partion only for Flight Sim.  The advantage is file fragmentation will be minimal.  I think I heard about this in an article posted on www.flightsim.com.

Roger