Hiya, guys...thanks for the input. Responses.....
Spannersatcx: Went into Troubleshoot...found nothing but dead ends that blame everything except microsoft. Nothing new there then (if they are so darned clever the software should look up the files and tell me what is needed, what happened to plug and play - it's become plug and pray).
Ironguts: You asked...I trawled - and found the following;
In Control Panel;
Game controllers; two tabs, "General" and "Advanced".
"Advanced" tells me ID1 is set for Force Feedback Pro connected through a standard gameport. (Hey, one bit correct).
"General" says that there is a Force Feedback Pro connected and it is in working order. Clicking "Properties" however, gives me a 'calibrate/test etc.' window..which is inactive..and is then overwritten by a text box saying "Power is Off. Reconnect power supply and press retry". Any button click loops me back to the same message...only 'close' will do anything (and it closes it).
Let's have a look in "system";
Device Manager...
Sound, video and game controllers
Closed Caption Decoder
Gameport Joystick
NABTS/FEC VBI Codec
SoundBlaster 16 or AWE32 or compatible
Wave Top (TM) NABTS/CC VBI Codec
Clicking 'Properties' on the Gameport Joystick option gives me three tabs... General, Driver and Resources.
'Resources' says Input/Output Range 0200-0207 No Conflicts.
'General' says "Working Properly"
'Driver' leads me to a 'Driver File Details' button which reveals four lines;
C
WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VJOYD.VDX
C
WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MMDEVLDR.VXD
C
WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MSANALOG.VXD
C
WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MSJSTICK.DRV
That's all folks. Now, whilst looking at the suggested microsoft web site for FlightSim2000 I did find an option to download a patch that makes the game run smoother. I accepted the option and proceeded to watch the 'copying files' icon throw pages of stuff across the screen for 1hr34minutes.
Could I ask all of you who read this message to carefully check your hard drives to see if you have got this file....'cause I'm buggered if i can find it on my hard drive.