Hello again.

OK I have zipped that community folder into my H drive and have extracted it locally to ensure that I have all the subfolders.  That works brilliantly and I thank you for the advice.

I really do like the idea of setting up the individual folders, ie aircraft, airports,sceneries and utilities on a different drive (H) which hopefully will not get affected by updates.

If someone could give me a detailed procedure to set up the shortcuts or whatever is required to link the folders in drive H to the community folder in user/appdata etc On drive c. This is a  market place purchase and standard install.

Thanks guys for the help so far.\Regards

Tony

4 hours ago, himmelhorse said:

Hello again.

OK I have zipped that community folder into my H drive and have extracted it locally to ensure that I have all the subfolders.  That works brilliantly and I thank you for the advice.

I really do like the idea of setting up the individual folders, ie aircraft, airports,sceneries and utilities on a different drive (H) which hopefully will not get affected by updates.

If someone could give me a detailed procedure to set up the shortcuts or whatever is required to link the folders in drive H to the community folder in user/appdata etc On drive c. This is a  market place purchase and standard install.

Thanks guys for the help so far.\Regards

Tony

I believe some of the addons referenced earlier do it automatically.

To do it manually I suspect the following will work:

1. move everything out of community to elsewhere and clear community of all files

2. anything that is already a shortcut like the Orbyx entry just put back

3. sort the rest of the files into whatever folders you want

4. one at a time right click on the addon folder and hit copy then go to the community folder right click and hit "paste shortcut"

EDIT symbolic link needed see below

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 13, 20205 yr by Glenn Fitzpatrick

Glenn,

Thanks mate,

That looks like a normal shortcut creation.  Being MS I thought we might have to do things a little differently. 

I have to say that apart from a relatively small data base of people complaining incessantly, this community is incredibly helpful.

Regards to all

Tony

Actually my bad, you need to use a symbolic link. I will post instructions up in a second.

I would just be careful about moving payware addons that have installed using an exe file - such as payware airports. Although they are placing their main files into the Community folder, they are also putting files elsewhere, while also logging entries into the Windows Registry. This is done to protect the developers from having people simply sharing those payware add-ons in the Community folder with others. If you remove those addon's from the Community folder, there might be a risk that you break the links between these files which will then require reinstallation of the entire payware add-on, and that in itself is a recipe for trouble.

 

5 minutes ago, RaptyrOne said:

I would just be careful about moving payware addons that have installed using an exe file - such as payware airports. Although they are placing their main files into the Community folder, they are also putting files elsewhere, while also logging entries into the Windows Registry. This is done to protect the developers from having people simply sharing those payware add-ons in the Community folder with others. If you remove those addon's from the Community folder, there might be a risk that you break the links between these files which will then require reinstallation of the entire payware add-on, and that in itself is a recipe for trouble.

 

Good warning.

 

OK for files you can safely move:

1. Download "Link Shell Extension" https://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html and install it (this utility allows you to create symbolic links without using the command prompt)

2. Right click on the addon folder you have put elsewhere and select "Pick Link Source"

3. Right click in your community folder and choose drop as -> symbolic link

7 hours ago, Glenn Fitzpatrick said:

Good warning.

 

OK for files you can safely move:

1. Download "Link Shell Extension" https://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/linkshellextension.html and install it (this utility allows you to create symbolic links without using the command prompt)

2. Right click on the addon folder you have put elsewhere and select "Pick Link Source"

3. Right click in your community folder and choose drop as -> symbolic link

Although this work just fine, the OP stated that he's not as sharp as he'd like to be on "computer stuff"

I really suggest looking into the MSFS Addon Linker freeware. It will do it all for you. 

Move all your mods where you like

run program and tell it where you put them

done - it will take over from there.

The only thing you have to deal with then is orbx, which installs it's own symbolic links, and any program that uses an exe to install.

Vic

I just rename my Community folder (e.g. add '.old'), then create a new and empty Community folder for the update and a test flight. Then I rename again to enable the add-ons. I only have liveries and sceneries in there though. Seems to work. 

1 hour ago, MorrisMinor said:

I just rename my Community folder (e.g. add '.old'), then create a new and empty Community folder for the update and a test flight. Then I rename again to enable the add-ons. I only have liveries and sceneries in there though. Seems to work.

Hello,

I do not understand the logic in doing this. After you do the update, which community folder do you use?  The new folder will not contain any of your ORBX sceneries etc. I would assume, that you then have to copy all the relevant files you want to keep into the new community folder and that brings back MY original problem ie I get the "your organization" message.  FOR ME, it is just going round in circles but I am very happy for you if that works.

Could I please have some more information.

I have managed to zip my original files to another drive and from there I assume it is easy to extract that zip file back into the community folder.  Doing that, however, replaces anything which has been updated in the community folder and that appears to be going backwards in a way. The process though, is good and very easy. Another aspect here, is that if I extract it into the secondary drive where I zipped it to, ie "extract here"  I do not know if I can then access the unzipped version or parts of it, like the ORBX subfolders, and move or copy/paste it into the original Community folder without bring on the dreaded "your Organization" message. 

I am simply getting more confused, and I do not know if I really want to do the update without knowing exactly what has to be done.  I am assuming here, that the update is going to be mandatory and it is available now apparently.

I apologize if I am trying everybodys' patience.

Tony    

3 minutes ago, himmelhorse said:

Hello,

I do not understand the logic in doing this. After you do the update, which community folder do you use?  The new folder will not contain any of your ORBX sceneries etc. I would assume, that you then have to copy all the relevant files you want to keep into the new community folder and that brings back MY original problem ie I get the "your organization" message.  FOR ME, it is just going round in circles but I am very happy for you if that works.

Could I please have some more information.

I have managed to zip my original files to another drive and from there I assume it is easy to extract that zip file back into the community folder.  Doing that, however, replaces anything which has been updated in the community folder and that appears to be going backwards in a way. The process though, is good and very easy. Another aspect here, is that if I extract it into the secondary drive where I zipped it to, ie "extract here"  I do not know if I can then access the unzipped version or parts of it, like the ORBX subfolders, and move or copy/paste it into the original Community folder without bring on the dreaded "your Organization" message. 

I am simply getting more confused, and I do not know if I really want to do the update without knowing exactly what has to be done.  I am assuming here, that the update is going to be mandatory and it is available now apparently.

I apologize if I am trying everybodys' patience.

Tony    

I think it  is basically a precaution in case any mods clash with the new patch and cause issues. I have never bothered and been fine. I vey much doubt the majority of users ever do this.

I suspect any official marketplace addons should be fine regardless as hopefully MS will be aware of any issues with those.

Glenn, I think you may well be right here. I may well just do the update as I have the zip file located on another drive as a back up.

The good thing is that I do not see many updates to the aircraft and I do not use any sceneries other than default OZ. With THIS update at least, I cannot foresee many problems.

Thank you to all who have responded to my plight in this topic. 

Regads

Tony  

2 hours ago, himmelhorse said:

Hello,

I do not understand the logic in doing this. After you do the update, which community folder do you use?  The new folder will not contain any of your ORBX sceneries etc. I would assume, that you then have to copy all the relevant files you want to keep into the new community folder and that brings back MY original problem ie I get the "your organization" message.  FOR ME, it is just going round in circles but I am very happy for you if that works.

Could I please have some more information.

    

My method might not be suitable if you have add-ons that are installed via an executable (.exe file). My Community folder only contains scenery and liveries which are simply copied into it, with no ORBX stuff. For info, all I do, before updating, is rename the Community Folder as 'Community.old' and create a new 'Community' folder - this is left empty so the update just sees it is a vanilla install, and it will ignore the other one since it has the  '.old' extension. After checking all is ok with the sim I just delete the new, empty,  'Community' folder and rename the old one containing the add-ons simply  as 'Community' again. No copying of folders is needed since only the name is changed whilst the update is done and is tested. All the files and folders stay in the same place. Sorry if this not a valid method for your install, I'm sure others here will advise on that.

Edited October 13, 20205 yr by MorrisMinor

19 minutes ago, MorrisMinor said:

My method might not be suitable if you have add-ons that are installed via an executable (.exe file). My Community folder only contains scenery and liveries which are simply copied into it, with no ORBX stuff. For info, all I do, before updating, is rename the Community Folder as 'Community.old' and create a new 'Community' folder - this is left empty so the update just sees it is a vanilla install, and it will ignore the other one since it has the  '.old' extension. After checking all is ok with the sim I just delete the new, empty,  'Community' folder and rename the old one containing the add-ons simply  as 'Community' again. No copying of folders is needed since only the name is changed whilst the update is done and is tested. All the files and folders stay in the same place. Sorry if this not a valid method for your install, I'm sure others here will advise on that.

I believe many installed addons just create a hard link, junction or symbolic link to wherever they have installed the relevant files. Presumably this allows their update and management software to modify the files without any issues as the files are not actually in the community folder at all, the game just thinks they are.

I suspect copying the link elsewhere and then putting it back will work fine.

You do not want to move the community folder -- leave it where it is!  What I found works well, is to create a new folder (in my case on a different drive, but it doesn't matter where you put it), and then move all of the files from the community folder to your new one. I named my new folder "MSFS addon files", and then added subfolders for planes and scenery. For convenience, my scenery folder contains subfolders for different geographical regions. This leaves you, for the moment, with an empty community folder, as it was when you first downloaded MSFS. This action is harmless and in no way affects the operation of the MSFS program. You can then either (a) manually move desired files into the community folder as needed for a particular flying session, or (b) use one of the recently created addon managers to select files and move, not the files themselves, but links to them, into Community -- much faster and more efficient than moving files manually. I found this one, described on an earlier thread in this forum, works well:   http://www.filedropper.com/addonlinkertestv1b

All new addons should then be placed directly into your new MSFS addon folder, not in Community. The effect of all this is to use Community only for those addons you need for a particular session, greatly reducing loading times as well as possible complications from patches. Your addon files are safely stored in the new folder and available for use when needed, but are out of reach of MSFS itself.

Hello all,

Well despite a fair amount of trepidation stemming from some negativity regarding downloads, I have updated leaving my community folder as is. (back up zip file on another drive)

I have just completed a flight YBBN-YSSY with no problems at all.

A couple of observations.

1. When I normally start this sim I go through a greyed out panel (checking for updates) as a normal part of the start up. This morning ... that did not happen. Instead I was greeted by the normal mandatory update screen telling me I had to go to MS for the update before launching the sim. (strange because I had already launched the sim LOL) 

The download and the update went well and smoothly. I then launched the sim again and this time (as usual) I was greeted by the "checking for updates" screen. This, obviously is not a biggie ... just strange LOL

No more thunder and frightning .. a blessed relief 

I did notice an occasional and momentary drop in frame rates from 50-55 to 25-28 but no loss of smoothness. Flight was with the Boeing747. Something to keep an eye on in the future I guess.

Overall, I am very happy with the update but flying in OZ and with minimal aircraft updates, not a lot in this update is going to affect me.

Regards 

Tony