tapbore, sounds like you have usb on your system, the next thing to try is with your joystick plugged in a usb port click on start - settings - control panel and click on the game controllers icon in there you should see microsoft sidewinder etc and the status should say OK. If it's not there it is not being picked up by the usb port, you can add it manually with the add tab and selecting it or you may need to install the software that came with the joystick and try it again. If it is there calibrate and test it. Then when you go into FS98 ensure that joystick control is enabled.
When you say USB adapter what do you mean does th joystick come with a standard usb connector or does it have the D tyoe connector that comes with a D to usb adapter. I have a precision pro with force feedback that came only with a D connector I tried adding the D to USB connector that comes with sidewinder joypad - did not work at all.
From my own point of view (and a lot of others) W98 second edition is worth getting for many reasons, apart from better stability there is better support for USB and many other things. Don't get W2000 as this is essentially an upgrade to NT and many people are finding they have problems with peripherals as there are not many w2k drivers yet.
Hope this helps a little.
Also if possible try it on someone elses pc to see if it is the Joystick that is duff or not.
[This message has been edited by spannersatcx (edited 07 July 2000).]