11 hours ago, TheFamilyMan said:

The WT_ MS response definitely applies here!

It would be nice if MS were more forecoming about this situation.

My Zendesk request has not yet received a response... do they really not know??

It makes me wonder..

 

2 hours ago, Bert Pieke said:

My Zendesk request has not yet received a response... do they really not know??

Actually, now they have closed my issue as SOLVED and sent me a feedback questionnaire.. Without ever contributing any useful information.

1 hour ago, Bert Pieke said:

Actually, now they have closed my issue as SOLVED and sent me a feedback questionnaire.. Without ever contributing any useful information.

HA, they must use the same IT people that my old workplace did, as in "Since you got it working using a workaround, the problem is resolved (and BTW without us doing anything but closing your case)."

Bert, I am curious: did your recover install get placed on the exact same drive configuration system wide as when you originally installed MSFS?

It'll be awful that once MSFS is installed on a drive, forget about ever trying to install/remove another drive, or migrating that install to a different drive using conventional means, and that the only way to do any of this is via a clean and proper uninstall followed by a store initiated install.  This does not bode well for the future, when folks are dealing with dozens of add-ons, rather than just a small handful (if any) that they have now.

Edited November 8, 20205 yr by TheFamilyMan

1 hour ago, TheFamilyMan said:

Bert, I am curious: did your recover install get placed on the exact same drive configuration system wide as when you originally installed MSFS?

Well no... or kind of.

My initial install was a pre-release install stub on the C drive, followed by an App Move to the H drive.  Then the full follow on content install, also on the H drive.  All of which was coded as symbolic links from the initial C drive locations.

After the system restore of the C drive, the links were broken (I believe), and my attempts to first Repair and then Reset the App, resulted in the files being deleted and MSFS disappearing from My Library.

When I got to the online Store and was able to first Uninstall and then Install MSFS to the H drive, after a 97 GB download, the resulting folders were no longer coded as linking back to the C drive.  But the content was the same as what I had installed before.

Hopefully this install is less "brittle"...  We will see..

Thanks for the reply Bert.  Why your restore seemed to bork the ability to initiate MSFS is most curious, if not completely infuriating.  I am guessing that Win10 introduces some sort of "shell game" around how apps can be initiated, though I've yet to find anything definitive about this.  I've yet to use the Win10 app move, though from what you describe the app content is moved, but its "initiator" (the private bit hid under my "game's shell", link is the word you used for this) stays in its original location and is updated.  This is what I find as the "shell" that has stuff we can't see hiding under it:

Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App

A bit of a clue is that you can run MSFS from cmd by using

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /C start shell:AppsFolder\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App

So there is something about "shell:AppsFolder" when combined with that convoluted identifier that actually knows where the MSFS install exists (i.e. accesses that hidden info under the shell).  It seems that regardless of where you install MSFS, a file of some sort gets created at C:\ProgramFiles\WindowsApps\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_1.10.8.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe and perhaps that's the private bit that's being accessed for its existence is cloaked by hard core permission settings.

BTW, my MSFS install never saw the C drive, and coincidentally its always 100% been on an H drive, which is now a wickedly fast NVMe drive.

Edited November 9, 20205 yr by TheFamilyMan
added the missing link file name

43 minutes ago, TheFamilyMan said:

BTW, my MSFS install never saw the C drive, and coincidentally its always 100% been on an H drive, which is now a wickedly fast NVMe drive.

I do believe that is not quite 100% correct. 😉

If you do some poking around in %appdata%, you'll find a folder for Microsoft Flight Simulator. Mine is just over 10gb, a not insignificant size. That folder resides (by default) on your "C:" drive, in your "users/[username]/appdata/roaming" folder.

To get that folder on to my NVMe drive, I took the rather techy step of having the entire "users" folder moved to said drive thereby improving the speed of anything else that uses the "users" folder. This requires a very clean re-install of Windows 10 and is not for the faint hearted as it involves custom answer files and sysprep.

As an alternative, it is possible to move the appdata/roaming folder itself to a different drive and leave a symbolic link in the old location. I'll leave it up to the reader to google how to do either of these.

I make no warranty of any kind that this will work for you. You are on your own. You assume any risks.

...jim

 

36 minutes ago, JimBrown said:

That folder resides (by default) on your "C:" drive, in your "users/[username]/appdata/roaming" folder.

Mine does not.  When installing MSFS, you can specify a different location for that appdata/roaming folder.  The location I specified is on my H drive.

Edited November 9, 20205 yr by TheFamilyMan

41 minutes ago, TheFamilyMan said:

Mine does not. 

Mine does not either..

Do you guys have the MS Store version or the Steam version?

I have the Steam version. The only location I was asked about was after the main exe was installed and started (same place when updates are released) which is were the "official" and "community" folders and data are installed.

Did you check the "users/[username]/appdata/roaming" folder itself?

...jim

2 hours ago, JimBrown said:

Do you guys have the MS Store version or the Steam version?

As you can tell from the preceding story.. the MS Store version.

On 11/6/2020 at 12:17 PM, Bert Pieke said:

This is the error I get after doing a systems restore:

"Microsoft Flight Simulator can’t open because it cannot be found. The storage device might be missing or disconnected."

As best I can tell, all the files are there.. but I can no longer start the program. ARRRG..

The MS Store shows MSFS as installed, but the PLAY button leads me to this error message.

Anyone have any ideas on what to do next?

Bert hopefully your issues are fixed by now. But if not I went through the same nightmare recently. Finally I asked for and received a refund from Microsoft and then tried the downloading via Steam store. It was very easy, it just asked for my windows account log in for verification. That's it. It just works. Save yourself the trouble and just go get it through STEAM!

Turns out the that bulk of MSFS, over 97GB, will be placed in the appdata/roaming folder if you don't tell the install to place it elsewhere.  Not at all useful if you are dedicating a whole drive for MSFS, considering that without this specification, your dedicated drive will only have about 3GB installed on it while the C drive gets that 97GB file payload.

Here is fun bit of info regarding my "shell game".  Initially when I completed my original dedicated MSFS drive's image copy and drive letter reassignment, I effectively had two installs of MSFS on my computer.  I now remember that at that time I ran MSFS via its desktop icon and it started up just fine, which truly misled me into thinking "Yay, my image copy worked!".  Mind you this was after I changed the drive letter assignments.  Later I reformatted my old MSFS drive, and eventually ran MSFS again; that's when I first encountered the missing install error.  So from this, it seems even with the wrong drive letter, whatever launches MSFS found my original install, blessed its virgin state and then ran "who knows what" successfully...so that's a HUGE departure from the past!!!  Today I disconnected one of my drives so the drive number for my MSFS drive changed, but fortunately that didn't keep MSFS from initiating successfully.  I'm guessing that MS has come up with some really DRM sneaky stuff that does NOT need a drive letter nor disk number to know where to find an executable.  But whatever that DRM stuff is, it BREAKS (or maybe it is supposed to) when something (a MS secret) about its associated files change.  So I'll leave it at this:  all Win10 "Modern" apps, which includes everything from the MS store, have a "handle" installed that is well hidden permission-wise (known) and is DRM protected (a guess) in C:/Program Files/WindowsApps. 

Consider this: could something as innocuous as defragging a drive cause this DRM to fail?  Can't see how this would be much different than installing a disk recovery image.  But I could see if something about MSFS changed and the recovery image predated that change would cause the DRM to break.  But when I did my reimage, this case didn't apply...oh well.

53 minutes ago, TheFamilyMan said:

Turns out the that bulk of MSFS, over 97GB, will be placed in the appdata/roaming folder if you don't tell the install to place it elsewhere. 

Well, you can MOVE the APP later in Windows settings, but that invites the problems that we are running into.

Best strategy is indeed to tell the install to put it on your selected drive from the very beginning and not move it later..

The other thing I learned is that the MS Store App and the online MS Store can get out of synch..  The online store is where you want to go if you are having trouble, counter to the advice that MS provides..

Edited November 9, 20205 yr by Bert Pieke

1 hour ago, TurboKen said:

Bert hopefully your issues are fixed by now. But if not I went through the same nightmare recently. Finally I asked for and received a refund from Microsoft and then tried the downloading via Steam store. It was very easy, it just asked for my windows account log in for verification. That's it. It just works. Save yourself the trouble and just go get it through STEAM!

One more victim who went that route to turn into a happy pilot.

Unfortunately, I am sure Bert bought MSFS so long ago that MS will never pay a refund. When I appplied I was within the (I think) two-week limit.

Kind regards, Michael

Edited November 9, 20205 yr by pmb

With all this muck I am a bit disappointed that I didn't go the steam route.  One other minor irritant is that I cannot lift the MSFS icon off either its exe or its desktop icon, since both are super cloaked by access protection.  I have made a MSFS desktop shortcut that launches it without the two intro videos, and I really want to give it the MSFS icon (though not desperate enough yet to make it from scratch, I gave it the FSX icon).

What I find rather fun is that once I got to a place that FSX runs like a dream, MSFS came along and makes it look like what it is: a 2006 app.  Yet now here we are again, wondering if it'll ever be possible to rid MSFS of its stutters and pauses that currently defy even the fastest 16+ logical cores rigs with crazy expensive top shelf gcards...looks that it's deja vu all over again.  Heck, give me a buttery smooth 30 fps is all I'm asking...don't need no stinkin' 60 (but I admit it'd be nice).