I’ve google searched, and people recommend looking in a folder in the user/appdata chain for plane manuals - but I don’t have the specific folder they suggest looking in.
What I am trying to figure out - especially when I change planes - is a diagram or depiction of what I’m seeing all over the dash, or on the displays.
I can pretty much pick up airspeed, direction and altitude - but knowing what the other stuff is is often beyond this duffer.
Where can I find some kind of manual or guide to help me know what I’m looking at - and whether a given aircraft has features like deicer / windscreen heater, or other stuff beyond the basics?
YouTube is definitely your friend in this case. There is already a barge-load of stuff out there, so finding decent tutorials may take a bit of trial and error, but most of what’s out there is pretty reliable.
There is also an excellent 787 guide on this forum under Manuals. Look for that. Sim-market sells a manual Published by SoFly. It’s very good, called " A guide to Microsoft Flight Simulator" around 15 dollars US depending on exchange rate. Currently 1.70V is the latest release. But, as mentioned, YouTube is your friend. My suggestion is get a program which will allow you to copy those videos to your PC, so you can watch and then do the thing said in the video. The Quality Wings 787 Video is over an hour long and is excellent for learning the 787 from cold and dark. MSFS is not nearly detailed enough to make all those systems work, but many of them do. Have fun.