Hi,
I cannot help you with MS Flight Sim 2000, but if it helps I run a Gateway 9150 laptop, 10GB hard drive, 128mb RAM, DVD and an ATI Pro rage 8mb graphics card.
I run MS Combat flight sim on this, but had the most terrible trouble at first until MS and Gateway discovered that by turning my SOUND accelerator down the game would run OK.
Up to this point it had crashed to 'Fatal exceptions' within 30 seconds of play.
Go control panel, multimedia,Audio, Advanced properties, and knock your sound accelerator down two notches. Worked for me.....?