8 minutes ago, Adrian123 said:

Could someone please explain to a lay person why this file structure is the way it is? Please. Shot gun blasted all over the computer.

Its not if you specify where to install it. Mine is as simple as my xplane install. D:\Microsoft Flight Simulator. The problem is that people rush through installs: next, next, next, next without actually reading what is on screen. The bane of support staff everywhere!

OK to tell you story. The boxed discs are stuck somewhere between uninstallation and re-installation, when MS Store, for my online material, suddenly decides to install that part of the installation - remember the discs have not been installed as yet!

 

I was able to select my D drive and as I write MSFS is installing the recommended content.

 

Fingers crossed for the next few hours.

In the meantime, where is the CFG for the controller bindings?

Thanks

Martin

 

Edited September 14, 20205 yr by sauviat
Final version

4 hours ago, FlyingInACessna said:

Yep! This takes place after hitting play during the full sim install. It says “choose a location for packages folder” and then start download.

Ok, I realise now what almost certainly happened. If that is the text that was issued by the "installer", I would have definitely assumed this was a request for a location for a temporary install package, which would then run and ask me where to install the actual simulator. This is not an unusual scenario. So, given that I really don't care where these sort of temporary packages drop themselves as they will either remove themselves after installing the actual product, or if they don't - I will, I would have just hit enter and assume it was using whatever obtuse folder structure MS had chosen for a default working directory.

But this "packages folder" apparently is a reference to the actual simulator folder, and so would have routed to the default location for "new apps", and then created the ridiculous ten-level folder structure which was then mirrored via junctions on my C drive.

I understand that MS wants to retain control over all its client computers (which seems to be how they view things since windows 10), but what we have here, as the movie said, is a failure to communicate. If the installation had actually said anything useful, you know, something along the lines of "where do you want to install MS Flight Simulator?", I, and I suspect many others, would have a much saner setup now.

Like I said, I will either move and relink everything or live with it, depending how bold I'm feeling after a bit of experimentation. It might sound eccentric, but I really don't want Microsoft treating my hard drives as if they owned them. It's bad enough with all the rubbish windows drops all over the place, without their sims doing it as well.

And yes, I know drive space is cheap. And I certainly can spare it on my machine. But I wouldn't let MS or anyone else just come in my house and drop their junk anywhere they felt like it and I feel the same way about my PCs.

/rant off

 

Edited September 14, 20205 yr by andy1252
text

38 minutes ago, tutmeister said:

Its not if you specify where to install it. Mine is as simple as my xplane install. D:\Microsoft Flight Simulator. The problem is that people rush through installs: next, next, next, next without actually reading what is on screen. The bane of support staff everywhere!

Having run a help desk myself several decades ago, I understand this point of view.

But, it's also a terrible problem in the industry that coders, who are (hopefully) incredibly familiar with the environment they're coding for, forget that they might be using terminology that is not obvious to the user who is going to be buying the product. Hence my comments about "packages folder" in my previous post.

17 hours ago, andy1252 said:

Having run a help desk myself several decades ago, I understand this point of view.

But, it's also a terrible problem in the industry that coders, who are (hopefully) incredibly familiar with the environment they're coding for, forget that they might be using terminology that is not obvious to the user who is going to be buying the product. Hence my comments about "packages folder" in my previous post.

That is a fair point, it needs re-wording to be installation directory or similar.

This is what I did and it worked perfectly.

On 9/14/2020 at 1:48 AM, FlyingInACessna said:

Pretty sure if you want to change the location you can just cut / paste the Community / Official folders into their own directory somewhere else, open the sim, and when it asks for an install location, select the new directory.

 

The other curious things is that there is a definite limit in Windows to how long a file path length can be in terms of the number of characters. Having an inordinate number of folders with sometimes ridiculously named folders such as those in the default installation path can potentially cause problems down the line when add on developers make their own folders and sub folders with long names. I have already seen it on here where people have hit that limit. Admittedly they were incorrectly copying master folders into the Community and not the sub folder within that mattered but it shows that reaching that limit is not far off. I believe the limit is 260 characters. Sounds a lot but start counting all the characters down to the last file extension in the deepest file in a default installation....

I custom installed to a path of my preference as the default path is just crazy.

3 hours ago, RaptyrOne said:

The other curious things is that there is a definite limit in Windows to how long a file path length can be in terms of the number of characters. Having an inordinate number of folders with sometimes ridiculously named folders such as those in the default installation path can potentially cause problems down the line when add on developers make their own folders and sub folders with long names. I have already seen it on here where people have hit that limit. Admittedly they were incorrectly copying master folders into the Community and not the sub folder within that mattered but it shows that reaching that limit is not far off. I believe the limit is 260 characters. Sounds a lot but start counting all the characters down to the last file extension in the deepest file in a default installation....

I custom installed to a path of my preference as the default path is just crazy.

Incidentally, Microsoft, as of Windows 10 v1607, has removed the MAX_PATH limitation of 255 characters, but you have to explicitly enable its removal.

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/naming-a-file#maximum-path-length-limitation

On 9/14/2020 at 3:43 PM, andy1252 said:

Ok, I realise now what almost certainly happened. If that is the text that was issued by the "installer", I would have definitely assumed this was a request for a location for a temporary install package, which would then run and ask me where to install the actual simulator.

^

This... is exactly what happened to me. I'd even created a folder to install into but missed the opportunity because of their obtuse language.

On 9/14/2020 at 2:05 PM, tutmeister said:

Its not if you specify where to install it. Mine is as simple as my xplane install. D:\Microsoft Flight Simulator. The problem is that people rush through installs: next, next, next, next without actually reading what is on screen. The bane of support staff everywhere!

Wrong answer. It IS exactly where i told it to be. SSD M2 drive. Just a whole lots of other word not allowed all over the place.