Hi Mongoose,
your right someone has posted on this before, cant remember all of it tho'.
Think you can only edit/save missions that are done in the mission builder format, there's other builder formats out there, crashing to desktop in advanced info is probably that you have'nt got an aifield entry in the DATS folder in info or the computer you download it to has'nt the airfield entry either, hope that helps.
do a search on 'crashing to desktop ' see if that helps.
Happ

Thanks for the help, guys! Unfortunately, this thing still hates all of us! The missions I made, I made with MB itself (a few others came from the web, so I guess I can't vouch for those). My airbase data is complete, although I WAS getting a few "can't locates" on a couple of planes--even though I know that they're there (I've double-checked, re-loaded, re-typed the title, etc)and other missions that don't crash "see" them just fine. I hadn't thought of the the Properties/Attributes thing, but when I checked, the only box ticked off was the "Archives" selection. "Read only" was blank (...so much for "write-protected", I guess. I'm old-fashioned anyway, the missions came from a floppy!). There's just no good, discernable, pattern to these gremlins, which is what really drives me crazy. Some missions work, some don't.  They've worked on certain installations, but not on others. If the mission data were corrupt, they shouldn't work at all, right? I know a little bit about manual editing, but is there any way to check this out for sure? THANX AGAIN!!

Thanks, Hagar! Sorry to say, I think we've struck out, though... Editing problems on non-origin CFS installations? Yes. Some are third party, some were made right here at home by Yours Truly. But I'm next to pretty darn sure that nothing's missing, and I know it isn't the dreaded too many airplanes curse, either. Here's why: About a month ago, my Hard Drive augered in with no survivors... Since then I've had to go back and start the whole thing over from scratch. Fortunately for me, however, I did manage to save most of my missions on an old floppy disk. This is a brand new CFS2 installation on a brand new Hard Drive. Many of these missions had third party objects, planes, and airfields, written into them, but I have been careful to look up each of these unique artifacts in the individual mission files and then put them all back in place before I fire up each mission. Like I say, some of the missions work fine, but others--at a complete random, it seems--don't. The same aircraft I've put back are recognized by some missions, but not by the other missions that crash. In fact, I've even gone so far as to manually edit out the offending objects (by opening the files with Notepad), gotten rid of the error messages that way, and then still have the rotten things crash on me anyhow. I had the exact same 'error-message-free' crash problem with a VMF-214 Blacksheep campaign I got from the Web a while back, too. And that was with the pre-crater CFS installation I had before my Hard Drive bought the farm. So, go figure...  Anyway, thanks a ton for your patience and advice!  

Moongose I had the same problem a while back. My previouse PC had Me Window and 600 MegaHertz speed and the game would stutter alot. So I decided to install Window 98 instead. I copy all my mission to CDs.After I copy and pasted them again. I had the same problem. If your missions where made thru Window 98 or Me you will have this problem. If you bought a new PC and it came with XP Window you wiil have this problem.  You can go to the CFS2 Icon on your Desktop and right click on it . Go to properties and look for compatibility. Click on it ,after that click on the appropriate Window your Mission where created. That should Fix your problem. The game will run thru that Window configuration but the rest of the programs will still work thru the main Window XP. I hope this will help you

Thanx again, guys. You're great! That's an excellent suggestion on the "alias" matter. I had sort of guessed at something like that, but probably hadn't looked closely enough at the idea until now. Unfortunately, for me, however, I couldn't find any obvious problems (I think...). The aircraft in question ARE a couple of drones. The first one is the Gramps 1% "birdcage" Corsair. I had originally put a new paint scheme on it and re-titled my creation as "F4U-1 VMF215" (I emptied the Panel folder). I put the same animal back together again with the same name, but am now told--and ONLY by the bogus missions in question--"cannot locate object 'F4U-1 VMF215(4)'". This is exactly how the title reads in the longhand (Notepad) version of the mission, too (family=4). The really strange thing is that CFS2 (as opposed to MB) has no problem seeing it at all. It reads "F4U-1 VMF215" just fine, and puts the little darlings exactly where they belong. The bogus missions fly just perfectly, too--without a hiccup, that is--until I go and reach for that darned "advanced info" icon, and then, once again, it's all over-- POOF! The only "alias" (I could recognize) in "F4U-1 VMF215" is to the stock Corsair sound file, so I don't see how that should be a problem... The other drone is the original "VB_G3M NELL". When I went back to the Web, I couldn't find an original copy of this anywhere, so I downloaded an updated version and simply changed the title back to the old one. Again, the only "aliases" were to the stock A6M2 Zero. CFS2 flies it just fine, but MB continues to play possum. Although I re-typed the original title, might there be any chance of an "internal" mix-up with a newer model name (or something like that)?
    As for the compatibility issues, that's another great suggestion. Unfortunately, though, these missions were both made on ME, and were re-installed on ME (I tried the "right-click\properties" thing, but apparently ME doesn't support it)--and they still don't want to work. Stranger still, some other missions that DO work were originally made on 98 and then had no trouble vaulting to ME, or even to the XP OS on a friend's machine. So again, go figure...
    You guys have been great, and I really appreciate your thoughts and time. If all else fails I suppose I can always just revert back to my default mode and go carpet-bomb Microsoft for a while... LOL! By the way, does anybody know of any good scenery downloads for Redmond, WA?
    Cheers, Mongoose-1