Flight Simulator 2000 Instrument Panels Issue

(Sorry for the cross-forum posting, but I figured this might get more attention here than in my original post over in the "basement")

 

I'm running Windows 10 and Flight Simulator 2000 (Professional Edition, if that matters).

 

A problem that I'm having is that the top edge of the instrument panel is BEHIND the main 3D view window. I can resize the instrument panel, or the main 3D view window, but of course that looks really bad. (See attached screenshots)

 

Several days ago I read SOMEWHERE on the Internet about someone who found a fix for this, but to save my #$%^&*& LIFE and I can't find it ! Does anyone have ANY idea how to overcome this problem? IT'S DRIVING ME NUTZ!

 

 

 

hi,

 

well Im not sure but maybe you could go to panel.cfg and change the paramaters in "position=" lines ? I believe the numbers mean order of windows.. my Window00=Main Panel has position 7

 

below is my stock window

On my installation it can depend on whether I'm in "full screen" or "windowed" mode.

Try pressing Alt-Enter and see if you prefer that.

There's probably a procedure or setting somewhere to get the panel "on top of" the outside view when in non-windowed mode, but I can't find it for the moment.

Good luck :)

The problem is due to running FS2000 fullscreen under Windows 10. If you switch to a fullscreen window, the problem disappears, but of course you're left with the windowed titlebar .

 

Anyhow, I had previously experimented with a Direct3D wrapper called "DDrawCompat", but after a lot of twiddling around with it found that it really affected my framerate a LOT... LOTS of stutters and such. That being said, I HAVE finally found a workaround, all without suffering from the framerate problems when using DDrawCompat.

 

Download the utility "AutoHotkey" from https://www.autohotkey.com . After installing AutoHotkey, create a plain text file with the file extension of ".AHK" with the following contents:

 

LWIN & LButton::
WinSet, Style, -0xC00000, A
return

LWIN & RButton::
WinSet, Style, +0xC00000, A
return

 

...and save it to the filename "Windows_Titlebar_Remover.ahk". After loading the AHK script into AutoHotkey you can press the left Windows key and the left mouse button simultaneously to remove the Windows titlebar. Press the left Windows key and the right mouse button simultaneously to display the Windows titlebar.

 

Note that if you run FS2000 as an administrator, or have any of the various Windows compatibility modes enabled, you will need to execute the AutoHotkey script as an administrator for it to function when running the program.

 

You can also go a step further and compile the AHK script into a standalone EXE :) I had a ZIP that I was going to upload as an attachment to this reply, but the forum was giving me an error message "Invalid file" or some such nonsense .

 

Anyways, this fix works PERFECTLY... you can run FS2000 in windowed mode, all without the titlebar, and without any of the performance issues that DDrawCompat (or any other Direct3D wrapper) may introduce :)

(re: invalid file error message for attachment) I went ahead and uploaded the ZIP here to the FlightSim.com file libraries, it should be available for download after it's approved :)

(re: invalid file error message for attachment) I went ahead and uploaded the ZIP here to the FlightSim.com file libraries, it should be available for download after it's approved :)

 

The file is now live here in the Flightsim.com file libraries, snag it from right here -> https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/fslib.php?do=search&fsec=0&fname=fs2kwtbr.zip :)

just curious, do you fly fs2004, or even fs2002, they both ran much better than fs2000 on my pc

just curious, do you fly fs2004, or even fs2002, they both ran much better than fs2000 on my pc

 

 

No, I don't. I had a hunch that they would probably run better though, as you said.