Is this a valid and proven workaround (can we get validation by FSDT perhaps if there is not a fix for this coming?)? And, can you by chance remind me how this is accomplished (if so)? Been a while since I had to fool with that kinda stuff in Windows. Thanks!
The validated fix was PRECISELY to DISABLE Windows 8 Compatibility mode, as indicated in the release notes of the latest update.
We enabled it months ago, because some users reported it worked better without it but, recently, there was an inexplicable crash that we could reproduce (after many tries), when selecting a service on a gate, with the program just shutting down with no errors.
After lots of test, it was confirmed on multiple system that, Disabling the Windows 8 Compatibility test completely fixed this crash, and we were unable to reproduce it afterwards, no matter how hard we tried, so we decided to remove the Windows 8 Compatibility flag, also because I assure the program is compiled with the native Windows 10/11 SDK and it's always updated with each Windows SDK update so, there's no reason why it should require Windows 8 Compatibility flag.
OF COURSE, as with anything related to Windows and MSFS, there might be so many other products running at the same time, and any of these might need some older version of the Windows runtimes, and it's known that, when two programs try to use different versions of the runtimes and are running together, there might be issues.
So, if the Windows 8 Compatibility flag works best for you, just enable it. We surely never designed the program to run with it (is not even clear on any Windows documentation what it really does), and it's sure that, after so many test, on all system WE could try, it's far more stable without it but, again, every system is different especially when so many add-ons run together all at the same time.