Presently running Windows 7 O/S with FSX Acce ( call me lazy/stubborn ) .... curious if I upgraded to Windows 10 how much tweaking is involved to run FSX and would I see any uptick in performance ?? As for Flightsim 2020 , I have dispatched an email to accounting (aka , the better half ) and a new computer system and monitor may be "considered" once the new sim has been released later this year.
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The Staff of SOH
Windows 10 & FSX
- Thread starter Aircanuck
- Start date
Bomber_12th
SOH-CM-2025
I just recently got Windows 10 a few months ago. The only issue I ran into was when trying to activate "Acceleration", though all it took was a quick registry edit which I found right away with a Google search (seems to be a common problem, easily fixed).
binarkansas
SOH-CM-2022
I can second what Falcon 409 said. A few months ago, upgraded to Windows 10 and FSX Acceleration works as good as ever. A computer guru uncle was visiting and he did it for me. I doubt I'd had enough nerve to try it by myself.
BB
BB
Advise please.
Am very happy with P3Dv4.5 on a Win 7 Pro O/S - except of course MS support is no longer there and eventually I won't be able to put off the upgrade.
I do recall Falcon maybe and others a while back now having major hair tearing with Windows 10 and FSX with all sorts of user settings being overriden and downloads being disrupted, etc. There were some MS services you needed to turn off, but maybe everyone figured it out and it's now no big deal.
My question - embarrassed to ask - is if I upgrade from Win 7 to Win 10, does it wipe everything, payware, freeware, saved family photos and other irreplaceable stuff from my hard drives forever? Will I need to find 3-4 terra bytes of flash drive and spend a month copying and pasting it all as a backup before upgrading (suspect the answer may be "no" but obviously interested to hear why).
Thanks guys!
Am very happy with P3Dv4.5 on a Win 7 Pro O/S - except of course MS support is no longer there and eventually I won't be able to put off the upgrade.
I do recall Falcon maybe and others a while back now having major hair tearing with Windows 10 and FSX with all sorts of user settings being overriden and downloads being disrupted, etc. There were some MS services you needed to turn off, but maybe everyone figured it out and it's now no big deal.
My question - embarrassed to ask - is if I upgrade from Win 7 to Win 10, does it wipe everything, payware, freeware, saved family photos and other irreplaceable stuff from my hard drives forever? Will I need to find 3-4 terra bytes of flash drive and spend a month copying and pasting it all as a backup before upgrading (suspect the answer may be "no" but obviously interested to hear why).
Thanks guys!
Jafo
SOH-CM-2024
Short answer is...10 has been known [in the past] to wipe all personal files etc in a simple 'update'.
Early adoption of 10 was anything BUT painless, and now and then people still strike hurdles.
That being said, by and large 'upgrading' to 10 is now possibly the 'best' update process MS has managed to achieve [but that bar is set low].
Download the media creation tool....load the installer onto an 8gig USB....and run it from within Win 7 [not by boot order] and maybe 99 times out of 100 it'll be painless.
BUT...
As with anything....if it's seriously IMPORTANT to you.....BACK IT UP.
That is always a given...
Bruce66
Members +
Well, I am going to stick my oar in here - I have just aquired a new computer with W10 as I knew it would be inevitable. I stress here that I have not upgraded my old computer to W10, it still has W7 and all my files etc as a backup.
For me changing to W10 with FSX-SE (not Acceleration mind you) has been a bit of a living nightmare! I have very limited time to access my computer due to family care issues so I experience constant interuptions in the process. I have kept notes along the way to keep errors to a minimum but I have still come accross several headaches.
The first and most annoying/worrying was when FSX (and all my other Steam products) failed to work after I logged in to Steam and confirmed I was the owner of the new computer. Granted after three tries and several reboots it worked and the first hurdle was crossed.
My next mega nightmare was with my controllers which no longer worked in W10. I was worried something in the transfer had damaged them but the problem turned out to be a rediculous and easy one. A freind told me he runs ALL his programs in W10 as an Administrator which I never had to do in W7. This fixed part of my controller problem but, as I was a Thrustmaster TARGET user I was very dissapointed to discover that TARGET will not work in W10 so I lost all my controller profiles for all my airplanes.
The most recent issue which I have not fully nailed down yet is with FSX-SE resetting my controller sensitivities and null zones to default when I restart my computer. This never happened with W7 and it took me ages to figure out what was happening. I suspect but am not sure that this is a 'run as Administrator' issue as well. Time will tell.
Add to this the frustrations of having to learn those small but improtant differences in the way W10 functions and losing some of my trusted old programs like Office 2002 and I have not had a happy transfer to W10. I know it is inevitable and I recall the same or similar issues when I finally switched from XP to W7 and from 3.1 to XP before that but I sincerly hope I pass on before the next enforced OS upgrade catches up with me!
For me changing to W10 with FSX-SE (not Acceleration mind you) has been a bit of a living nightmare! I have very limited time to access my computer due to family care issues so I experience constant interuptions in the process. I have kept notes along the way to keep errors to a minimum but I have still come accross several headaches.
The first and most annoying/worrying was when FSX (and all my other Steam products) failed to work after I logged in to Steam and confirmed I was the owner of the new computer. Granted after three tries and several reboots it worked and the first hurdle was crossed.
My next mega nightmare was with my controllers which no longer worked in W10. I was worried something in the transfer had damaged them but the problem turned out to be a rediculous and easy one. A freind told me he runs ALL his programs in W10 as an Administrator which I never had to do in W7. This fixed part of my controller problem but, as I was a Thrustmaster TARGET user I was very dissapointed to discover that TARGET will not work in W10 so I lost all my controller profiles for all my airplanes.
The most recent issue which I have not fully nailed down yet is with FSX-SE resetting my controller sensitivities and null zones to default when I restart my computer. This never happened with W7 and it took me ages to figure out what was happening. I suspect but am not sure that this is a 'run as Administrator' issue as well. Time will tell.
Add to this the frustrations of having to learn those small but improtant differences in the way W10 functions and losing some of my trusted old programs like Office 2002 and I have not had a happy transfer to W10. I know it is inevitable and I recall the same or similar issues when I finally switched from XP to W7 and from 3.1 to XP before that but I sincerly hope I pass on before the next enforced OS upgrade catches up with me!
Daube
SOH-CM-2025
If you really have *that* much data in family photos and other very important item, then I would STRONGLY advise you to save a copy (or several) of them anywhere before these hardrives start to fail.
Paywares and freewares are not that important.
But for your family pictures, you might want to start looking at cloud-based solutions, like OneDrive or Google Drive for example.
I have suscribed to Office 365 a few years ago. That has increased my OneDrive available storage space to one Terrabyte. More than enough to store all my precious pictures, and a few other "important" files.
Then I don't care what happens to my hardrives or SSDs anymore.
Concerning the upgrade to Win10, in my case it didn't wipe any file that I can remember, but I basically saved all the important ones before upgrading.
As Jafo said, don't upgrade before all of your files are saved somewhere EXTERNAL to your computer.
Daube
SOH-CM-2025
Well, this happened to me many times in W7, and at that time the solution was already to run FSX as an administrator (else it wouldn't even save the settings, actually).
I understand the problem for your office 2002.
My usage of office tools (Word, Excel and Powerpoint) was very limited, then I was happy enough with the free online office tools for a while. For Outlook and emails in general, I have always been using ONLY the web outlook interface anyways...
I switched to office 365 (suscription, around 60 dollars per year?) mostly because I needed more storage space in OneDrive
wombat666
Administrator
I've been less than impressed with W10 but decided to load it in my just completed new build.
Installing it from USB was quite simple, with FSX-SE, P3Dv3, P3Dv4.5 and XP-11 all running without a hitch.
However (there's always 'however') several programs either crashed, were over run by W10 crap default programs, or just ceased to load.
The most annoying and frequent hassles were with several of my graphic programs, all of which were current (2020) releases and used frequently for photography.
So yes, it seems as if the Flight Sims work fine, as do my Race Sims.
Certainly do not risk losing any important files, a 4TB external drive is not expensive and will save any anguish if W10 goes feral.
In my case, I'm adding a new 2TB M2 drive and a new 1600W PS, then reverting to W7, after having checked all the W10 options and finding none that are available without the MS 'Crapware'!
I don't need or want Edge, Cortina, MS Paint (meh!) and the entire collection of bloatware rubbish that is me causing problems.
JFTR, it has been literally years since I've had a BSOD.......over the past couple of weeks W10 has delivered decades worth!
Installing it from USB was quite simple, with FSX-SE, P3Dv3, P3Dv4.5 and XP-11 all running without a hitch.
However (there's always 'however') several programs either crashed, were over run by W10 crap default programs, or just ceased to load.
The most annoying and frequent hassles were with several of my graphic programs, all of which were current (2020) releases and used frequently for photography.
So yes, it seems as if the Flight Sims work fine, as do my Race Sims.
Certainly do not risk losing any important files, a 4TB external drive is not expensive and will save any anguish if W10 goes feral.
In my case, I'm adding a new 2TB M2 drive and a new 1600W PS, then reverting to W7, after having checked all the W10 options and finding none that are available without the MS 'Crapware'!
I don't need or want Edge, Cortina, MS Paint (meh!) and the entire collection of bloatware rubbish that is me causing problems.
JFTR, it has been literally years since I've had a BSOD.......over the past couple of weeks W10 has delivered decades worth!
As I considered updating to Windows10 was unavoidable, I must have been one of the first to upgrade my Windows7 computer to Windows10 I have never regretted this decision. I had several FS9 installs and a huge FSXA install. They all remained running without any problems and as already mentioned before I actually had the feeling FSX was running better with Windows10.
Over the years I had some minor problems with updates which didn't really work as advertised, but I never lost any data. Especially in the early days of Windows10 I had some minor issues with non-32 bits programs which Windows10 didn't really liked.
After I made the switch successfully, I decided to upgrade my wife's Windows8 machine. Again it when smooth as advertised and has never caused any issues. As my wife runs only basic programs, which are not very demanding on memory and graphics, I didn't expect anything different
I recently purchased a new machine which had Windows10 from the start. It works slightly different than the machines which had the free update. But in general is't very stable and runs FSX and FS9 without any problems. I have invested in SSD disk space so FSX and FS9 start very quick, which is the biggest improvement....
Cheers,
Huub
Over the years I had some minor problems with updates which didn't really work as advertised, but I never lost any data. Especially in the early days of Windows10 I had some minor issues with non-32 bits programs which Windows10 didn't really liked.
After I made the switch successfully, I decided to upgrade my wife's Windows8 machine. Again it when smooth as advertised and has never caused any issues. As my wife runs only basic programs, which are not very demanding on memory and graphics, I didn't expect anything different
I recently purchased a new machine which had Windows10 from the start. It works slightly different than the machines which had the free update. But in general is't very stable and runs FSX and FS9 without any problems. I have invested in SSD disk space so FSX and FS9 start very quick, which is the biggest improvement....
Cheers,
Huub
Mine didn't wipe anything except some old apps which don't run in W10 (this was informed while the install). Actually the whole W7 is there still in case I'd like to go back (I won't do). The only problem was that W10 lost my joystick (CH Fighterstick USB) and I had to install it again. No big deal. Of course I cannot guarantee anything. I didn't have any bigger problems - others may have, but what I have heard quite seldom.
As told here already it is always wise to have backup (changing the OS or not). My payware, freeware and personal stuff went easily into my 1TB external HDD. Didn't take a whole day just a couple of hours. I have been completing the backup now and then always when necessary. I don't use any backup programs but backup the folder structure as it is. Then it is easy to find anything if I delete something by accident for example.
I think that only those things that exist nowhere else need to be backed up. Most of my payware is to be found on CDs and Internet shops where I bought them and are easily installed again if they would disappear from my PC. Most of my freeware is to be found on Internet's FS sites again if necessary.
Windows 10 update causing files to be deleted is nothing else than a hoax/fake news. It happened once, with build 1803 and was rectified pretty quickly. Moreover, updating from Windows 7 or 8 to 10 is a bad idea. Go for a clean install. A bit more work, but well worth the effort. It gives you a clean and crisp install that you can tweak to your liking. (if you know your way around a windows install that is) As for bloatware or superfluous software included in Windows 10, you can easily remove it through "removing windows features" in the control panel. All of the problems I read about Windows 10 is usually voiced by people who refuse to embrace change and progress. They can always go back to Windows 3.1... I have fond memories about Windows 3.1 and NT 4.0 myself, but older windows version are exactly that: things of the past. And those of us who plan on running the upcoming M$ flightsim: get ready for Windows 10. It will run on nothing else! 
Jeebus!! Priller
Jeebus!! Priller
Last edited by a moderator:
awstub
SOH-CM-2023
I would like to point out that not all Windows 10 operating systems are equal..... so do a little bit of research and pick the best one for your needs.
Personally, I decided to install the newer "Windows 10 Professional for Workstations" on my new system because it is specifically intended for high end systems.
I paid $21.05 for the installation media (USB thumb drive) and $35.00 for one license (sent via e-mail) and it installed flawlessly and has given me no issues so far.
This being said, even if it were to have a catastrophic problem, I make sure I regularly backup everything important to an external location.
Personally, I decided to install the newer "Windows 10 Professional for Workstations" on my new system because it is specifically intended for high end systems.
I paid $21.05 for the installation media (USB thumb drive) and $35.00 for one license (sent via e-mail) and it installed flawlessly and has given me no issues so far.
This being said, even if it were to have a catastrophic problem, I make sure I regularly backup everything important to an external location.