MSFS2024 Experience in Excel

After MFFS2020 Steam stopped updating, I waited a while before buying MSFS2024.
A week or two ago, I finally took the plunge and bought MSFS2024 Steam (and GSX Pro, but I’ll get to that in another post).
I first upgraded my PC from Windows 10 to Windows 11.
Then I reset Windows 11 so I had a clean install of Windows.
I installed MSFS2020 Steam on a separate drive and MSFS2024 Steam on the C: drive (why you can’t put these on a separate drive, like MSFS2020, is a mystery to me).

Also bought GSX Pro and installed it straight away.
What are my experiences as a beginner so far?
Well, both positive and negative.

Let me start with the positive.

1. Yes, graphically, MSFS2024 looks better than MSFS2020.
Although I do think it looks a bit arcade-like, if you know what I mean. The colors don’t look natural in everything.
But all in all, it looks beautiful.

Then the negative part. Unfortunately, there are many negative points to mention, especially if you’re just a beginner and only pick up the game occasionally.

1. The controls are very difficult to understand.
How do you add an action to a command?
That alone is a challenge.
But with help from the internet, it’s easy to figure out.

2. There are duplicate actions in the Controls.
For example, “Move Backward.”
Why does it appear twice in the list?
Which one works?
And does it work if you assign different buttons to each?

3. In MSFS2020, you could easily turn off the engines in Airliners with “SHIFT+CTRL+E” and turn them back on with “CTRL+E.”
Well, turning them off seems to work on all airliners, but I’ve only managed to turn them back on on one so far.
Why MS+Asobo?
For a beginner like me, it’s so easy.
Yesterday I (accidentally?) found a fairly simple solution for this, which seems to work for the Boeing 747 at least.
I assigned “ALT+SHIFT+B” to “Toggle Master Battery.”
And I assigned “ALT+SHIFT+S” to “Toggle All Starters.”
After turning off the engines with “SHIFT+CTRL+E”, I first use “ALT+SHIFT+B”, then “ALT+SHIFT+S”, and finally “CTRL+E”.
Now the engines are starting!
However, this does seem to have a negative effect on GSX Pro, but I will come back to that in another post.

4. The pre-flight checks around the aircraft.
MS+Asobo liked this idea, but what a nightmare this is.
It’s very difficult to perform all the checks, takes a lot of time, and more importantly, you can’t skip them.
At least, if you don’t want to start right on the runway.
A workaround could be to start on the runway and then taxi to the gate (or parking lot) first or if you have GSX Pro, you can move your aircraft (warp) from the runway to the gate/parking lot.

5. There seem to be some more bugs in MSFS2024.
It often happens that the program doesn’t do what it’s supposed to.

6. At first, I thought I had to download everything (that said “stream”). Uh, my bad, that’s not necessary (I think).
Apparently, everything in the Library that says “Stream” is streamed and doesn’t need to be downloaded.
It would be nice if they mentioned that!

All in all, this product still doesn’t seem finished.
What do you mean, “released with a French twist”?

If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know!