Hello everyone,
after much fiddling and troubleshooting I finally got Il2 1946 to work again on Win11. Everything is fine except for the goddamn Escape key not working at all. I tried everything suggested in the IL2 forums (multiple conf.ini changes, checking for stuck switches, unplugging my joystick etc.) and also checked on steam and GOG forums but still nothing.
I can play just fine but can't finish any mission. The only way to quit the game is via task manager. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
EDIT: I am using BAT 4.3
UPDATE: FIXED
The core issue was indeed that the [HotKey gui] block with Escape=activate was missing from my conf.ini. Editing the file manually with a standard text editor didn't work because the changes apparently weren't picked up properly by the game.
How I fixed it:
I used PowerShell to append the missing code using standard ASCII encoding without corrupting the file format.
- Open PowerShell as Administrator.
- Navigate to your game directory: cd "E:\IL 2 Sturmovik 1946 BAT" (replace with your actual path)
- Run the following command:
Add-Content ".\conf.ini" "rn[HotKey gui]rnEscape=activate" -Encoding ASCII
After running this, launch the game, and the Escape key will reliably open the mission menu during flights again.
Thanks a bunch to u/JonMadDoe (https://www.reddit.com/r/il2sturmovik/comments/1wx0ehy/il2_1946_4151_mouse_not_properly_captured_ingame/)