I've been using Steam for 20 years and had never had a single issue with any purchase, download or addon. There would be no reason for me to purchase from anywhere else (or my wife who pre-ordered MSFS2024 for me via Steam as an early Christmas present yesterday).  

2 hours ago, St Mawgan said:

I've been using Steam for 20 years and had never had a single issue with any purchase, download or addon. There would be no reason for me to purchase from anywhere else (or my wife who pre-ordered MSFS2024 for me via Steam as an early Christmas present yesterday).  

I can count on one hand the number of issues I've had using Steam for roughly 20 years, some people just like to hate on it even though they don't use it themselves which I find quite bizarre!

9 hours ago, Noel said:

I learned the basic steps which were specific but few and simple.

On Steam, there is only one step: push the button. Voila! Upgrade installed.

When I had the MS Store version the upgrade procedure was about as clear as mud. Has that changed?

 

3 hours ago, MarcG said:

I can count on one hand the number of issues I've had using Steam for roughly 20 years, some people just like to hate on it even though they don't use it themselves which I find quite bizarre!

I agree. I think Steam is one of the best things ever to happen in PC gaming. I've never had a moment's bother with it, and the two times I asked for a refund, they were done in 24 hours. I had no hesitation in pre-ordering MSFS2024 on Steam last week.

2 hours ago, b1bmsgt said:

On Steam, there is only one step: push the button. Voila! Upgrade installed.

When I had the MS Store version the upgrade procedure was about as clear as mud. Has that changed?

 

It's the same here:  launch MSFS, up pops the Mandatory Update message, press button and Voila! Update installed.  Once MSFS is installed Sim Updates and World Updates don't use the Store app per se it just is as stated so it's all internal to the sim.   You don't actually need to use Steam to update the sim, do you?  If so that's an extra step.

What is the advantage, if any, to Pre-order? Are there only so many licenses available? I was thinking of waiting until release and give Steam my $160 CDN for “Premium Deluxe” then. 

 

 

5 hours ago, MarcG said:

I can count on one hand the number of issues I've had using Steam for roughly 20 years

I use Steam for maybe 6 titles over the decades with the latest being Ghost Recon:  Wildlands.  About two weeks ago I went to launch GRW and got a spinning graphic in the Steam app that would never progress.  The sequence looks like this:  I hit the GRW icon on the desktop.  It launches the Steam app.   From there, Steam launches Ubisoft Connect. Unfortunately because this install depends on Steam, as it turned out the Steam app was borked for some reason.  I spend a good half hour trying to figure out what was happening and finally just uninstalled Steam and reinstalled the Steam app and functionality was restored.  

I see Steam as an unnecessary 3rd party app between the app and myself.    In the above illustration were Ubisoft Connect not dependent on Steam to launch GRW this would not have happened. 

In the case of MSFS for me I never looked for it on Steam so proceeded w/ the Store install.   If the Store install is so fundamentally defective there is no way I would have had three completely trouble-free installs and reinstalls over 4 years now in different hardware and OS and all of the many updates in each install.  Every one of them have been 100% flawless.  And that is a lot of installs and updates.

Read this whole thread which is an example of how convoluted things can get when you involve a 3rd party.  Not blaming Steam here of course it's only used to illustrate the increase in complexity when the 3rd party is added and therefore the potential for various issues increases, absolutely.  This was just an entry of mine in it:

 

14 minutes ago, TomCYYZ said:

What is the advantage, if any, to Pre-order? Are there only so many licenses available? I was thinking of waiting until release and give Steam my $160 CDN for “Premium Deluxe” then. 

 

 

No advantage (other than early access to one of the aircraft which I'm not too bothered about). I suppose it's nice to know it will be there on the day and you might have the money for it now but don't know if you will have it in November so, either you put money aside or get it now. Entirely up to you. 

Sounds like someone is on a crusade to convince themself the inferior choice is the right one. MS Store is also a third party, requires you to log in to a Microsoft account, it uses encrypted files which means the .exe isn't directly accessible, hence why we had so many issues with people not being able to use ReShade for a long time. Its encryption and authentication layer is also the reason why a lot of people have had issues launching the sim, which has been a problem with many MS Store games over the year. I had that back in the day with some Forza titles, because the validation is so asinine when using the Windows store, requiring lots of troubleshooting to get fixed. Oh and remember that issue with people's settings getting lost? That is somehow almost always tied to the MS Store version.

For the love of God, stop painting the store version as something good or like it isn't a big, fat middle-man causing issues, because it is. It's absolutely the inferior store in every way imaginable.

31 minutes ago, TomCYYZ said:

What is the advantage, if any, to Pre-order? Are there only so many licenses available? I was thinking of waiting until release and give Steam my $160 CDN for “Premium Deluxe” then.

I pre-ordered  Premium Delux, but there's no advantage other than you get the Canadair CL-415 ahead of time in MSFS2020. And that is quite an aircraft - the detail is astonishing.

30 minutes ago, Noel said:

I use Steam for maybe 6 titles over the decades with the latest being Ghost Recon:  Wildlands.  About two weeks ago I went to launch GRW and got a spinning graphic in the Steam app that would never progress.  The sequence looks like this:  I hit the GRW icon on the desktop.  It launches the Steam app.   From there, Steam launches Ubisoft Connect. Unfortunately because this install depends on Steam, as it turned out the Steam app was borked for some reason.  I spend a good half hour trying to figure out what was happening and finally just uninstalled Steam and reinstalled the Steam app and functionality was restored.  

I see Steam as an unnecessary 3rd party app between the app and myself.    In the above illustration were Ubisoft Connect not dependent on Steam to launch GRW this would not have happened. 

In the case of MSFS for me I never looked for it on Steam so proceeded w/ the Store install.   If the Store install is so fundamentally defective there is no way I would have had three completely trouble-free installs and reinstalls over 4 years now in different hardware and OS and all of the many updates in each install.  Every one of them have been 100% flawless.  And that is a lot of installs and updates.

Read this whole thread which is an example of how convoluted things can get when you involve a 3rd party.  Not blaming Steam here of course it's only used to illustrate the increase in complexity when the 3rd party is added and therefore the potential for various issues increases, absolutely.  This was just an entry of mine in it:

 

None of that means that "steam users have issues" to quote you, I can easily go through forums finding issues with MS Store purchases, the official forum alone a simple search yields many results. The fact is steam is an extremely solid platform, it's had decades to refine itself and it's used by 132 million monthly active users so they're doing something right, but it appears that because you had issues then it must be bad for everyone, which is simply not true.
 

Steam I have MSFS2020 with steam zero issues.

2 hours ago, Noel said:

If the Store install is so fundamentally defective

No one said it was.

2 hours ago, Paul K said:

I pre-ordered  Premium Delux, but there's no advantage other than you get the Canadair CL-415 ahead of time in MSFS2020. And that is quite an aircraft - the detail is astonishing.

Thanks, I might just jump at that! 👍

2 hours ago, MarcG said:

None of that means that "steam users have issues" to quote you, I can easily go through forums finding issues with MS Store purchases, the official forum alone a simple search yields many results. The fact is steam is an extremely solid platform, it's had decades to refine itself and it's used by 132 million monthly active users so they're doing something right, but it appears that because you had issues then it must be bad for everyone, which is simply not true.
 

ALL software as complex as is Steam comes with issues of one form or another.  When I Google "problems w/ the Steam app" I get plenty of evidence of issues users may face.  Here are the titles of articles in sequence and most are from 2024:

anyone knows what's wrong with steam mobile app?

Steam Client Troubleshooting

App suddenly not working :: Steam Mobile

The Steam Android app is utterly broken and has been for ...

Steam not opening? Here's how to fix it

App Hang issue with Steam

Programs Which May Interfere with Steam

I appreciate Steam is a mature platform that works very well and have never said otherwise.  But of course Steam users have issues and I just described one to you.  That happened not because Steam is a bad app, but it's the layer between me the user and launching GRWildlands that prevented me from accessing GRW and that's a fact.  There is no need for Steam in MSFS as its installer works perfectly every time making new and re installs a veritable piece of cake.

Edited September 30, 20241 yr by Noel