First off, hello... again? I've been a member here for years but kind of fell off the wagon.

So, here's the meat of the situation. I got hooked on Falcon 4.0 quite a number of years ago, stumbled upon this site (an earlier version actually) while trying to set up a brand new set of sticks. Got hooked on the 'new' BMS features , along with DCS Black Shark just in time for my computer to die a miserable death. One thing led to another and due to a lot of life changes I had to give up building computers and and flying until now.

I got bored today and decided to dig out sticks and BS discs (my Falcon disc has taken a trip to the Great Unknown) to see if my laptop would handle it. To my great surprise it does!! So now the adventure continues....

Now for the questions.

1. I'm currently running a Windows 10 laptop. I know this isn't the optimal machine but its what I've got until I can build something else. What is the current status of the sims with the OS? I know things were shaky to say the least with 8 when my XP desktop gave up the ghost (yep, its been that long since I flew).

2. I was previously running Falcon 4.0 Allied Force from Lead Pursuit. Assuming I will want to get back into the mod versions, which sim do I need to be looking for? I know there were several different versions, even seeing an Atari version on Amazon now that I don't remember seeing before. While I would love to have them all, I doubt my marriage would withstand it.

3. Saitek 52 Pro profiles... what's up with this? When I was running before installing profiles was a simple matter of downloading and opening the .pr0 file in the editor. Now it seems that only gives you a list of commands and you must manually select each button to program. Am I missing something here? I had a wonderful profile that I tweaked for Black Shark on the last machine but I have no idea how or where it came from. I've spent all night trying to recreate it to some functional degree but not having a lot of luck.

I could go on all night with the Saitek questions but I think its better if I let these soak for a while. Maybe I'm just tech-tard and missing a step somewhere.

Thanks for any info or advice you can provide.

1) There shouldn't be a problem with Win 10 and the sims.

2) You need to have Falcon 4.0 installed on your disk because BMS checks it when started.
I recommend to register on the BMS forum
https://www.bmsforum.org/forum/content.php
and read about the install process.
The needed F4 version is very cheap and Allied Force will NOT work.

3) BMS forum has a section about input devices like Saitek and profiles for download.

If you want to run DCS/Black Shark on your system, check the required/recommended specs first.
The "old" DCS 1.5 is free, so you can check the performance by just installing it (huge download though).
The "new" DCS 2.1 actually requires the Nevada map module, but will be free once the Caucasus map is ported.
https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/downloads/world/alpha/

Welcome back SLICK75!

In case you missed it, have a read of this thread to help you with any install issues. BMS works fine with Win10 but it's the controllers that seem to have issues with Win10 Creator's Update My advice would be to stay with Win10 Anniversary Update.

Why do you want to play Allied Force? BMS is superior in almost every way (some people like the campaign control in AF).... if you just want to experience the Balkans campaign, IIRC there is a Balkans theatre in BMS that's quite good.

As for your Saitek profile, my suggestion is to pick a profile from the BMS forums and that way you can get accurate help from others that use the same profile.

I'm on Win 10, and it runs great. I have avoided the Creator's edition update, though each evening it prompts me to install it, but I just click it away. How long can that go on?

As for the AF versus BMS debate... listen, I was a AF disciple. But there is no doubt that BMS is the better choice, in my opinion. There are some nice features of AF that I wish BMS had, mostly campaign and UI related. But where BMS truly shines is the jet. The systems, avionics, 'pits, and on and on are far superior in BMS. For me, To each their own, but I can see no reason to go back to AF at this point in time. Get BMS and be done with it.

I agree with Floyd and Ice, and check the link Ice gave, it should be all you'll need to get BMS installed and get your hops on.

First off, thanks for all the info.

I don't necessarily want AF, that was just what I had been running before finding Free Falcon and all the others. That's why I asked which one I needed. I stumbled upon BMS and SimHQ by accident really while trying to find profiles when I first bought my X52. It seems like I had to do some other stuff to get BMS working, even remember having a program switcher that swapped between the 2 different installs. I also remember something about running the Lead Pursuit version vs. Micro Pose, someone had to actually send me the MP .exe to even get started. FreeFalcon (later became BMS ?) I guess is where I did all that, couldn't remember until someone here mentioned it. LOL The fog is slowly beginning to fade.

Back then I only had satellite internet, no way to fly multiplayer. Got a slightly faster connection now, hopefully before long I can get online and really learn how to fly.

Thanks again everyone.

By all means, if you want to re-live AF, then there's nothing to stop you!

You can learn the basics by doing the tutorial TEs... online is more about learning how to fly with others, how to build mutual support, how to communicate with others, etc. So it is not "learning to fly" but rather learning to do your role in a more efficient manner.