i was wondering if there was any good free ware pannel making progrms. nothing to fancy i just wanted to make some panels that would have all of the stuff that i would like. and i also have no experence with such things so noting complicated please if one exsits

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but CFGEDIT is no longer available. This was written for FS2002 but it could be used in FS2004 except no XML gauges. If you google CFGEDIT it will take you to the web site of the replacement program FS PANEL STUIDO this is a pay ware program but can be used for free for a limted time. I have had this program for some time now and in my opinion it is worth the money if you are serious about panel building or just want a easy way to edit panels this is the way to go. It works with XML gauges also and takes all of the guess work out of gauge placement you just click add gauge pick out the gauge you want (the gauges you can add is only limited by the gauges you have in FS) then just drag it to where you want it at. Since you are looking at the actual panel it makes it easy.

You can use CfgEdit for panels with xml gauges.  It's not going to hose your files, it just doesn't display the xml gauges properly.

I'm writing this from memory because I've used FS Panel Studio exclusively for a few years (and, it is definitely worth the investment if you want to get seriously involved in panel design) but as I recall CfgEdit displays a placeholder where xml gauges should appear.  You can see the size and location of the gauges, just not the gauges themselves.