What's the consensus recommendation on this?  Do they often work, ones created by 3rd parties and purchased thru the Store or their installation apps?

Thanks! 

I used a separate installation of Addon Linker and then linked the addons I wanted to try out into FS2024 from the same install folder I use for FS2020.

Saves doubling up on install space.  I also have a dedicated FS2024 install folder for any FS2024 specific addons.

Here's what I've done.  I would not recommend a mass copy of the community folder over.  If you do that, you at least want to go in smaller chunks, and even then you'll be doing a lot of trial and error.  

You want a separate folder and an addon linker for sure.  I never used an addon linker in 2020, but I do now.  

Stores like the marketplace and Orbx will only let you install addons that are compatible.  So, if something shows up in the marketplace, it should be safe to install (there's a few exceptions still).  Same with Orbx, I don't have 2020 installed, and it won't let me install addons that are not 2024 compatible into 2024.  In theory I could install 2020 and copy it over, but I'm not doing that until I'm sure.  

For paywaye stuff, I'd recommend checking out the vendor's site and/or where you bought it to see it it is compatible.  You can check various marketplaces to see if it says "2024".  For me, if something doesn't say compatible, I hold off.

For freeware, honestly I dumped it all and am starting over.  I'm only grabbing stuff that has been updated.  fs dot to has a nice filter.  If you've got some favorite freeware, you can load it separately and test it.  

I don't know if my way is "right", but I seem to have a lot fewer problems than most.  In the early days, everything from the 2020 marketplace automatically loaded into 2024, and my sim didn't work until they stopped that.  

We were told that 2020 addons should be compatible with 2024.  We expected airports to copy over at least, but the reality is for whatever reason that isn't the case.  I've gone with caution and patience.  

What everyone above has said already. Use Addon Linker.  You keep one hard copy of the add-ons, and let Addon Linker create the symbolic links in the Community folder for both MSFS 2020 and MSFS 2024.

The airports that I own for MSFS 2020 in my Community folder, work fine for me in MSFS 2024. But I have heard of a few cases where there are issues in MSFS 2024, but I think that's a minority of cases.

Edited February 26, 20251 yr by abrams_tank

I zipped and copied my entire community folder over as I do not use addons linker.  Initially, I started with 2024 running as stock with a new empty community folder and began copying files from the old folder chunk by chunk.

All of my several hundred addons, both payware and freeware worked ok and in most cases perfectly with the exception of the following:

Rex airport markings

Boris C152 and 172 soundsets

Blacksquare analogue aircraft 

Several files (mainly scenery) have been updated for 2024 in the 2 months I have been using the product.

I do have the odd pink texture in places where a texture file may be missing in 2024, but overall that part of the experience has been relatively painless.

2 hours ago, cianpars said:

Blacksquare analogue aircraft 

Luckily, that is fixable by copying the base aircraft over from 2020..

I fly the A36 and TBM850 all the time.

I have not copied anything over from 2020 folders to 2024 folders.  Using Addons Manager I simply point both simulators to the same folder sets.  Folder set I have set up in a custom location.  One set, both sims, using the twin versions of Addons Manager.  By folder sets I refer to a single structured set of folders.  A tree for aircraft and aircraft mods; a folder tree for sceneries; a folded tree for library objects, etc.  Then with the dual versions of Addons Linker, one for 2020 and one for 2024, I point each of them respectively to that one overall set of structured folders.

Simple. Effective.

First you must cut/paste or copy what you can over from Official to the folder sets you establish elsewhere on your system.  If you encounter lack of permissions from Windows just try using various compression utilities to compress them first, then copy the compressed files over into your personally established folder sets and decompress them.

And whenever possible, acquire your addons from sources that allow you during installation to install them to where you wish.

The only issues I have encountered appear to actually be addons that are just not 2024 compliant to start with.  98% are 2020 aircraft models that due to lack of SDK info from MS/Asobo cannot yet be ported over. 😡

Edited February 27, 20251 yr by fppilot

11 hours ago, Bert Pieke said:

Luckily, that is fixable by copying the base aircraft over from 2020..

I fly the A36 and TBM850 all the time.

Several of us have tried that and found that it doesn't work Bert.

If anyone has had any success with that, I will have another go at it.

Edited February 27, 20251 yr by cianpars

1 hour ago, cianpars said:

Several of us have tried that and found that it doesn't work Bert.

If anyone has had any success with that, I will have another go at it.

It worked for me. It’s been a while, so I can’t remember the procedure exactly. But @Bert Pieke will know 🙂

7 hours ago, cianpars said:

Several of us have tried that and found that it doesn't work Bert.

If anyone has had any success with that, I will have another go at it.

Am I anyone?

Seems like I may need to have another look at it.  Thanks.

1 hour ago, cianpars said:

Seems like I may need to have another look at it.  Thanks.

 

Edited February 27, 20251 yr by Bert Pieke