I have not changed a keyboard assignment in FSDT, GSX or anywhere else in FSX or P3D ......... for a long time.
Yes, you have, but since you said yourself it was a "long time", you must have forgot this. Your preferences are NOT removed or reset if you uninstall GSX so, even if you did this a long time ago, unless you reinstalled Windows in the meantime, that preference file would still be there from your past installation.
I searched the internet and this FSDT forum. I learned that CTRL + F12 should work.
Yes, but not if you change this with the key mapping menu. That's the whole point of having that menu in the first place: to allow you to CHANGE the key so, you must expect it *would* change...
But I also seen many posts on the FSDT forum about various problems with getting GSX to start with CTRL + F12.
All those posts don't have anything to do with your problem, they are almost invariably related to the fact that GSX is NOT WORKING, so they are not just missing the GSX menu after pressing the CTRF+F12 key, they are ALSO missing the "Addon Manager" and/or the "Couatl powered products" menu,
Anyway, CTRL + F12 did not work to get GSX up in my FSX or P3D setup.
Because you changed it, so it's normal it wouldn't work.
By chance, I just tried calling a fuel truck .. SHIFT + F (and I had to check my notes to verify how to do that).
Guess what?
I got the GSX menu.
That's normal, and it's to be expected.
At this point I did not know a keyboard assignment for GSX could be changed!
It's obviously explained in the manual.
So, now I read the manual.
So now you know that you can change that key.
It also said CTRL + F12 will call up GSX.
No, it says that key is what is used BY DEFAULT, and since it also explains that you can change it, you can't expect the default key would STILL work after it has been changed.
Everything in my previous screenshots is as it was on my fresh install of GSX ... I have not set up any keyboard keys.
Yes, you have, likely with an old installation. There's no such thing as a "fresh" installation, because your custom preferences are NOT trashed when uninstalling/reinstalling, and that's obviously correct (would you like the uninstall/reinstall would destroy all your customizations ? Surely not )
As a matter of fact, I never tried to change a GSX assignment. I do not know how to do it.
You did, but you forget about it. And if you read the manual, you should now how to do it now.
Bottom line ... for me, on a fresh install of GSX, CTRL + F12 does not work.
That's because yours wasn't a "fresh" install. You must have installed it in the past, changed the key to use ALT, and forget about it. There's no question about it.
And, why does SHIFT + F call GSX?
Because GSX IS WORKING!! Since one of the services is the refueling, it's assumed you don't want to use the default FSX fuel anymore, so GSX intercepts the default fuel key, and will replace the feature with its own.
Your GSX is working perfectly, what is not working, is the *default* CTRL+F12 key, because you changed it, that's it.
Now, to prove you that a "fresh" GSX installation will set the CTRL+F12 key correctly, just do this:
- Go into the %APPDATA%\Virtuali folder
- Remove the Couatladdons.ini file
- Reinstall GSX.
After the installation, you'll see the default GSX has been correctly set as being CTRL+F12, because if there's no Coautladdons.ini file, a NEW one will be created from scratch with all default settings.
Instead, in your case, since there was already a Couatladdons.ini file, that set a different default key, it wasn't recreated with the GSX installation, and the only possible reason you already had a Couatladdons.ini file with a different key set, it's because you changed it in a previous GSX installation, not matter how old it was, as long you haven't reinstalled Windows in the meantime.