After years of fun making aircraft, ships and scenery for CFS2 with FSDS Pro and FSDS2, I recently had to get a new PC and of course it has Vista. Pro won't even install and FSDS2, after working for a couple of months has now stopped (a click on anything to do with textures crashes it) I am hoping Abacus tech can suggest a fix, but......

If I upgrade to FSDS3, will the a/c, ships etc export to and work in CFS2? 
If they don't, it doesn't seem worth carrying on; CFS3 is so limited compared to CFS2 and Gmax just makes me laugh.
Anybody tried FSDS3 to CFS2, have any tips or opinions on it ?

ACtually, yes.  FSDS 3.5, 3.5.1 will work with CFS2.

In this case " think gmax gmaepack"  (ok, I know it sounds like heresy, but....)

Install the CFS2 gamepack and point your FSDS 3/3.5 to the appropriate CFS2 makemdl.exe and such.

You will then model and compile to the correct model format (or, conversely, you can use the FS2004 gamepack makemdl.exe, etc - just be sure to model for the CFS2 game, since you can do much more for FS2004 than CFS2.)

Note also, that your existing FSDS2 fsc files will open easily in FSDS3.

I suggest that you write to Abacus about upgrading to FSDS3.5.1, also, they might have suggestions on running FSDS2 under Vista.

A suggestion - you might want to try to install FSDS2 not to the default "program files"  but to a separate folder OUTSIDE of the Program Files.

I suggest you try something like C:\ABACUS\FSDSv2 ...