Tony's Tips for FSX

Or if you're hardcore you could kill explorer.exe after you start up flight sim... 😎

Does it depend on the type of PC you have, and would deleting explorer.exe have any impact on my PC?

D5Tweddle wrote:

Does it depend on the type of PC you have, and would deleting explorer.exe have any impact on my PC?

You would stop it for executing using windows task manager. You would not want to deleted the explorer application from your system. Stopping explorers execution for the current session can be restored by rebooting your system.

Traches wrote:

Or if you're hardcore you could kill explorer.exe after you start up flight sim... 😎

Is there a reason why you can't do that prior to starting up the sim?

Tailhook wrote:

Traches wrote:

Or if you're hardcore you could kill explorer.exe after you start up flight sim... 😎

Is there a reason why you can't do that prior to starting up the sim?

You can't start the sim without it. Theres no desktop, nor a browser for your files. There's no way to execute it.

deleting explorer.exe is a bad idea. I meant to end the process, not to erase it.

It's possible to start flight sim after shutting down explorer.exe, but it's a little more difficult... Ctrl+Alt+Del, then there's a button for "new task". That works like the run window, you can type the location of fsx.exe. It's just a lot easier to use a shortcut 🙂

And a restart isn't necessary, just type explorer.exe using the new task button.

Thanks for the replies guys!

Raz, I had no idea you were such a geek - say, how much do you charge for private tutoring? 😀

Traches I'm quite familiar with the Ctrl+Alt+Del combo to call up the Task Manager... in fact it's the only way I know how to 😁
Ending the process instead of deleting the explorer.exe is crystal clear as well.

Here's what I did: Fired up the sim, ended the Process (explorer.exe) - which resulted in terrible death threats issued by MS - but I clicked on YES anyway. The result was a completely blank monitor with the exception of my X-rated wallpaper. No taskbar, no icons - nothing.
Executing the Ctrl+Alt+Del combo again popped up the Task Manager and I was able to type under Processes explorer.exe - everything back to normal.

It's not my intention to cause you yet another headache but you're cheekily insinuating to use a shortcut; I do know how to create those... but what difference would that make?

Tailhook wrote:

Raz, I had no idea you were such a geek - say, how much do you charge for private tutoring? 😀

😂

Sorry! I should have explained in more detail how to work the kill explorer.exe method...

explorer.exe is basically most of the front end for windows, it's the taskbar, shortcuts on the desktop, and the program that interprets a lot of your windows shortcut keys. It's pretty important most of the time, but also uses a fair amount of system resources. That's why everything disappeared, and why windows got pissed off that you wanted to end it 😀

So basically, tailhook that's exactly what was supposed to happen. Windows' front end is gone, but all the programs you had running are still there. The nice thing is that alt+tab still works, so you can use that to switch to FSX and start playing.

Here's the procedure:
-Start up FSX the same way you normally do
-Hit CTRL+Alt+Delete or CTRL+Shift+Esc to call up the task manager
-Kill explorer.exe under the processes window
-hit Alt+tab until you bring up the FSX window.
-Fly!
-When you are done, Close FSX
-Bring up the task manager again
-Switch to the applications tab, hit 'new task'
-Type explorer.exe, and hit enter. You should get everything back.

Hope I did a better job this time 🙂

Oh you genius, this time it worked!
So why did you hide the Alt+Tab from me in the first place? Spring break blues or hangover I guess.