Windows 10 and FS2002

You can get it to work. :cool:

Just be ready to be very patient while you do your set-up. :rolleyes:

I just replaced my old PC (Vista 32bit) with a new one running Win10 (64bit), so I'm not a Win10 guru by any stretch.

After a lot of fumbling, I've managed to get FS2K2, Nav3, and ACS-GPS installed and talking to each other. :D

Installing FS2K2 took several tries and one re-install, but that was familiar territory from when I installed it in Vista ;) . The key to install seems to be to let Win10 think about it. The first try, the new machine didn't want to read the CDs. Later :rolleyes: , all seemed fine and I did a full install. That wasn't the end of the story by a long shot, this is where it pays to learn about Compatibility Mode in Win10. Long story short, I first tried running in Vista svc pk 2 mode and things seemed fine. There were minor glitches in terms of getting the logbook set up and working but it was the best I've seen FS2K2 look without a graphics card and I could also maxx out, well, everything. :D

Getting Nav and ACS-GPS running and talking to the sim was another story. :rolleyes: Long story short, I still haven't yet found the best combo but running all the exe files in Win98/ME mode seems the most stable. If you use Win10's compatibility trouble shooter, it will default the progs to XP mode but none of them will run right and will mostly crash at some point. So, Win98/ME mode seems to be the answer, but with one downside. You're limited (at least I'm limited so far) to 1280 X 786 displays. In XP mode, the sim runs well at higher resolutions but won't talk to Nav or ACS-GPS without hassles (a LOT of hassles).

So, if you're trying to get the older FS versions going on Win10, the best thing I can tell you is to stay patient and tackle each issue on its own. There may be a "one size fits all" answer, but I haven't found it yet. :rolleyes:

Just as a follow-up, as of this evening things are looking much better. :cool:

After I was sure all the progs were stable and talking to each other with no hangs, I tried setting FS to run in XP (service pack 3 ) compatibility mode while leaving ACS-GPS and Nav3 in Win98/ME mode. Things ran great and I got my full graphics settings back. :D I then tried running FS in vista comp. mode and lost my logbook so I set it back to XP comp. mode and made sure everything was working again.

So, it works after all. Like I wrote in the first post, be patient. Find the compatibility mode each prog will work in then test all of their functions to be sure they operate fully and can "talk" to the other progs. Bump the comp. mode for each prog up one level (win98 to vista to XP, etc.) at a time and test the progs at each step. If a prog fails, bump it back down to the comp. mode where it worked.

I just wanted to do one (last?) follow-up.

Win10 and FS2002 are getting along better than I had hoped. :D

A couple of points, though. Win10 is fairly new which means you can count on updates, usually one every week to two weeks. Since Win10 is fairly new, you should expect some updates to go better than others. That just happens sometimes.. :rolleyes:

I had an update a couple of weeks ago that didn't go smoothly. The update itself looked janky, my machine seemed to crash instead of just restarting. The effect on FS was pretty bad. The program would launch up to the point of showing the 2D panel in the start-up situation then go black. I would then get a "windows is shutting down this program, check back for solutions" message. It also asked if I wanted to send an error report.

This was dicey because I wasn't sure how much support there would be for a 15 year old sim title. I tried some older and newer Win compatibility options with no luck.

Several days of gray hair later, I tried launching FS again and things started up like nothing ever happened. :cool: FS was actually smoother than before, like I was getting the stability of the older comp mode with the better (DX) graphics of a newer one.

Whatever, I'll take it and smile. The key is NOT to panic after an update. Let the error reports do their thing and filter through MS's data bases. If its obvious that the updates are not fixing themselves, then you can panic. Just wait for at least one week before you hit the button. :) One great suggestion was to delete the FS2002.cfg file in the main FS folder and try re-starting. I can't say if it was effective for me, but dumping the old config file will force FS to generate a new one.

Comp mode hasn't changed since I first installed FS. Windows XP SVC Pack 3 for FS, Win98 mode for ACS-GPS and Nav3.0. One other tip, Win10 can be a bit naggy at times when you make changes in FS's Options. Believe it or not, sometimes it pays to listen. :eek: I had been locking the frame rate at 60 FPS and Win10 would keep changing it back to 30. After the bad update had happened, I was more concerned in stability than I was with frames and left the frame rate alone. To be honest, I can't see a difference in frame rate at 30. This is a min value, anyway, so I'll be leaving it alone.

Long term, there's one little glitch I'd like to fix in FS- the aircraft preview screen doesn't show up when selecting an aircraft. This isn''t a deal-breaker by any stretch and I can get along fine without it. I suspect its due to DX's 2D/3D handling. I might be able to fix it by goofing around with the FS2002.cfg file but I'm really not in a hurry.

I'm also looking around for a GPU. Not for frame rate (THIS is a first!) but for something besides the on-board Intel graphics. :p They aren't that bad but they aren't that good, if you know what I mean..

Since I'm not in hurry to move up from 1080p and FS2002 was coded before DX10 (I think?) there's not an advantage in shopping for a mid or high range GPU. I'm actually favoring one of the fanless cards (

The one odd ball feature on this new PC is that, at the same display options, the VGA output looks a lot better than if I used HDMI. :confused: It isn't due to my monitor or cables, I tried the same set ups on my older PC. Weird.. but fixable.