Classic British Flight Sim

I've been so fed up with waiting twenty minutes to load airports, I decided to try something.
Disconnected the internet cord.
Turned off W7 Firewall.
Turned off System Mechanic protection.
Airport loaded in about 30 seconds.
I've switched Firewall back on to do this post, btw.
Now you're going to tell me that's what you have always done, right?

Nope!!

Regards
Nigel.

Me neither, but I do exclude all the (in my case) P3d files and folders from my AV.

Update:
Thanks for your comments, Gentlemen.
Having turned W7 Firewall back on, I left that running, and re-started FSX.
It was quick again.
Conclusion: System Mechanic safety measures are the most likely cause of my delays.
I'm a bit concerned about leaving them off, as a typical week gives me 3 or 4 attempted infections blocked.
I'll see if there's a way of doing Dave's procedure in SM.

Never heard of System Mechanic.

I'd suggest investing in something a little better such as BitDefender.

I'd suggest investing in something a little better such as BitDefender.

I second that.

Regards
Nigel.

btw, if you've never heard of it, how do you know that Bit Defender is better?
System Mechanic isn't just a malware defender.
My 16Mb RAM is often clogged so that only 13-14Mb is available; within 10 seconds, I'm back to about 15Mb free.
It also does a one click optimisation of settings such as internet, start up etc. Other options such as drive scrubber, etc, etc....are available.
There's no magic, but it makes advanced Windows tasks easy to run, some functions constantly monitor and tweak the system.

Hi Mike,

Memory and CPU are there to be used, having 13GB free is simply a waste. “Tools” that disable or modify operating system services to “optimise” your PC are a waste of time. They can only give you back memory or resources by stopping legitimate things running. Also, Switching off the firewall to improve load times is also dangerous. I would recommend people leave their security settings intact and wait a few extra seconds. Also, for those using FS9, FSX, or early version of P3D, these are all 32bit applications and cannot use more than 4GB of RAM (in addition to the OS usage.)

And that is why BitDefender is better.

I didn't realise that system optimisation software was still a thing in 2020?
Anyway, I'll only repeat what Ben has already said so...