Download Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight (Windows)

Sam Booken 2022-12-09 8 points

First off, this game fully works on Windows 10 & 11. I just tested it over the last few days with no issues. If you're having issues with downloading such a large file, I highly suggest an opensource freeware download manager. I ran a virus scan on the download, the unzipped files, then while playing the game (yes in the background while playing, just in case), and after it installed and found nothing, zilch, nada. No spyware, no boot loader, no data mining, no bit coin mining, nothing. So quit your crying and complaining that this site is infested with stuff. They make money from donations and ads, so click on them or donate. So first I extracted it using 7zip, but the default built in Windows extractor works just fine and extracted it to C:\temp\msft_flight_sim\ . Folder had three files. The NFO can be opened by right clicking and using notepad and you can see more details on the game and files. The other two files are Alcohol 120% files.

Okay, the game will install from a virtual mounted CD / DVD drive and in my case I labelled the virtual drive V:\ (V drive). You can also burn the DVD using an ISO burner, but keep in mind this is not an average ISO it is a patched and updated ISO (requires no serial key either, because this is the version that came on a DVD with newly purchased PCs!), but actually is labeled as an MDF. So, this is a Full DVD ISO created using Alcohol 120%. Thus the ISO is actually labelled MDF. So you must use Alcohol 120% or in my case I used the Opensource application called WinCDEmu-4.1. and again, mounted it to V:\ (drive). After mounting I right clicked on V Drive and then "open in new window". From there I clicked on the Setup.exe and installed it. Once mounted you might get an "Autoplay" to install from the mount. Do not install from the "Autoplay", not that it does anything crazy, it's just I didn't do it that way, so I don't if it works correctly. Okay so, installation takes a while once clicked on, and then it asks to launch. I allowed it to launch with no extra special setting like admin rights, compatibility mode, etc. nothing. Just launched it and it works. Then I adjusted it to my resolution (1680x1050 32 bit), and then watched the grandma & grandpa videos on how to fly and trying to sell me a Microsoft joystick and good it feels, and then I just took off flying. While flying grandpa flies with you (backseat driver) and helps you as needed with landing, leveling, explaining, etc. All audio and graphics work as they should. There is some pop-up and flickering in the far distance, but the same thing happened back in the day when I played it originally as well, hardly noticeable if at all. For a game that is quite dated, the game still looks amazing. The PDF version of the game manual is also included on the mounted drive\extras\Manuals folder.

After exiting the game the icons on the desktop no longer worked. Don't panick, I just rebooted the PC and everything was back to normal. I'm not sure if this was a Windows 11 update, but it did happen.
So then I installed my joystick, and on the second bootup of the game it recognized my joystick, but not all buttons and axis, sliders, dial, and rotations. Again don't panick, and just install the shareware (free) of JoyToKey and remap all the joystick buttons to keyboard buttons and you'll be flying like an Ace in no time! The game is also patched so it does not need the disk to be in the drive / virtual drive to work. Total install amount is 2.71GB, much lower than the 100GB requirement for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. So then unmount the virtual drive, delete the temp folder contents and happy flying fellow gamers,

Sam Booken

tubkal 2021-11-27 9 points

This game made me choose a career in aviation and become a professional pilot. Thanks FS2004!