Everyone tells me that CFS1 - if not already dead - is certainly dying.     I still think that it's the best of the 'combat' series.      It is certainly far and away the most widely popular.        Have Microsoft given any thought to updating it rather than issuing CFS 4, 5, 6 ...?

CFS4 was supposed to be a direct update of CFS1.
But,
a) it's been "cancelled" (I would not accept these reports as true. Ten to one on a release after Vista) and,
b) they went too far again and 'improved' it too much.

For me (and many others) it's attraction was in it's simplicity, enabling an active 'community' to surround it.
They keep trying to make it "more realistic". That's great for the 'realism' freaks, but not for fun-lovin ole know-nuthin gamers like me.
I wanna get up in the air with a fair level of competency and have little enough to worry about that I can fly and still have a giggle with whoever I'm up there with.
Too much is just a distraction. If I gotta worry about extra controls / flight models, that's work, not fun. How are new players going to get into the game if the starting level is so far ahead of them?

Gimme extra graphics, aircraft, scenery, and a way to keep the cheatin sob's outta my games. Thass all I need. Not extra controls. Keep them for FS. Not CFS.

[same goes for you Oleg!]

ty.

CFS1 is far from dead, despite attempts from M$ to kill it. Membership and interest is down because of it's forecasted demise, but it still exists on the Zone, months after M$ threatened to remove it.
Even though they've hidden the log-in page, we're still getting new pilots / players finding us and wanting to learn more and more about it.
There are also private game servers hosting CFS1 elsewhere (although the main meeting point is still the zone and these do tend to detract from membership there).

I must be missing something here.

In my CFS collection, I have CFS1 which was updated by CFS2 which itself was updated by CFS3......  ???

Confused. 

Sorry but I think you're wrong. You need to know a little of the history of FS to appreciate it. Combat Flight Simulator was originally part of the MS Flight Simulator series. These were released alternately starting with FS98 (FS 6.1). Each new version introduced improvements leading to where we are now.

CFS1 was FS 6.5,
followed by FS2000 (FS 7.0)
then CFS2 (FS 7.5)
& FS2002 (FS 8.0).
FS2004 is FS 9.1

Many features of FS2002 were first developed in CFS2 & it was an ongoing project. Unfortunately CFS3 went off in an entirely different direction & broke the mould.

The whole attraction of the MSFS series is the open-architecture structure & the 1,000s of 3rd party addons available for them. M$ gives us the basic platform & we can develop it from there. This is what sets it apart from all similar products & explains why CFS1 is still popular over 7 years after it was first released.

PS. If you stick to what you get straight out of the box you're missing a great deal. IMHO

It has been interesting to read the responses to my original note.        I recognise that there are add-ons to the 'n' for CFS1, but it is my view that the real problem with the program is that the 'engine' technology is now long outdated.       Put the FS2004  technology into CFS1 and the program would be a winner.     The 'format' of the program is, even now, streets better than CFS2 or CFS3.

CFS1 is still verry popular, my old squad (CFS Eagles) is still going strong. Its a VERY good game, even with its downfalls, and if i was into the bullets flying evrywhere i would still play it, but i have gotten into the ATC system and procedures FS9 brings, I may someday re-install it and fly a bit but i had so much scenery i would want back its almost to much of a hastle now. It was one of my favorite games and it got me into FS and flying. I have even created an airbase for the Grey Ghosts,  its on SimV somewhere in the cfs1 scenery area. This game will last a long time and is still one of the best Combat fs out there.

  Its hard to say if there will ever be a release of an updated, improved version of CFS1, but I seriously doubt it.   As I recall MicroSoft sold the rights of the original "Combat Flight Simulator" to Atari.  Every now and then you can run across a copy of the Atari version in the "bargin" bin at Kmart, Walmart or Target.

  I've heard that the original MS version of CFS1 has had problems running on later versions of Windows, what I'd like to know is if the Atari release of CFS1 solved these problems?

I've run it on '95, ME and XP.

Haven't run it on 98 (though I hear from the 'experts' that's the one to go for) but in the two years I've been on it, XP is far and away the best for my CFS1 (the original).

Some of the 3rd party add-ons had problems in XP but that was because some of the core Windows files had been moved around; Addresses they relied on weren't where they were 'supposed' to be.

It didn't affect CFS1 itself and I think all the major add-ons now have updated versions that are XP specific (TG2, etc).