Moving MSFS to another drive

[MichaelLowl 63]

Good day, I need a little help from my friends: I decided to move my MSFS from a SSD-Drive to a faster (1TB) Nvme Drive and Win10 don't let me copy the One Store or Community folder. Can someone give me

a safe step by step how do move the whole SIM without downloading over 100 Gigs? I'm on the latest Beta now and I don#t wanna lose any of my settings I made.

Thanks in Advance!

 

Michael

[Micko 89]

Hi there, hope you find the right advice here:

https://www.google.ie/search?q=moving+msfs+to+another+drive&nord=1&source=lnms&tbm=vid&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj84-vEj4b1AhUIXMAKHcmRB4oQ_AUoAXoECAEQAw&biw=1551&bih=868&dpr=1

 

Take care

Mick

[bobcat999 8,444]

I am interested in this as I have just bought a new NVME 4.0 drive.  Supposed to be 7000 mb/s read, so hopefully it will bring the loading times down.

It seems as simple as going to programs and apps and selecting move on the MSFS entry, but I wonder if it changes the last line in the userconfig.opt file.  It normally stores the path in there, and MSFS doesn't start if it is wrong.

@MichaelLowl  Please let us know how it goes.  I can't do mine until Thursday due to lack of time.  It's part of a full new motherboard and processor install. 

 

Edited December 28, 2021 by bobcat999

[MDFlier 2,031]

I just moved my installation to a new drive. I did a simply copy of my main MSFS folder to the new drive. There were a couple of system owned folders that it would not let me move ( WindowsApps and WpSystem), so I didn't bother with them.

My situation was probably different than yours. I started with MSFS in E:\MSFS\MSFS\ and after copying ot to the new drive. I reassigned the new drive to E:\, so MSFS never really "moved". the other stuff became F:. I'm not looking forward to telling P3D and FSX-SE that they have a new home, but I haven't launched either one in 2 months now....

After I relocated and fired up MSFS, it launched the installer and looked like it was going to re-install. I pointed it at the correct location and let her rip. Less than 1 minute later it was launching. Apparently, it noticed all of my files in the correct place and did a repair, including rebuilding the 2 folders I couldn't move.

EDIT: I forgot to mention. The regular shortcut to MSFS wouldn't work after I copied it to the new location. I had to use the MS Store app to launch it.

Edited December 28, 2021 by MDFlier

[Fielder 3,644]

You only need to and only should copy and paste two folders that are inside your Packages folder, namely Community and Official. Do not move anything else, leave it where it is. Those 2 folders have 99% of the file volume anyway.

Create a new folder on your new drive, this folder can have any name at all.

Now rename your old Packages folder still at the old location so MSFS cannot see it. But the new folder you created to contain your new Community and Official folders at the new location should not be renamed. MSFS will be able see it when you browse to it at 'checking for updates' screen.

Do not alter any lines in any .cfg file.

Just close MSFS if it isn't already closed and then boot up MSFS again. At the 'checking for updates' screen, browse to your new location. MSFS will see your huge Community and Official folders all there in good shape and will not have to redownload anything. MSFS will proceed to open as normal

EDIT: You would have to keep both drives on your system using the above method. So that Windows can see both drives.

If you are going to remove a drive from the computer and replace it with another drive, then you just need to clone the old drive over to the new drive. For instance using the free version of Macrium Reflect. After that is all done and confirmed working, then you can reformat your old drive and use it somewhere. Such as putting it into a cheap case with a USB interface to plug in and out of your computer.

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

 

Edited December 28, 2021 by Fielder

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

14 hours ago, bobcat999 said:

I am interested in this as I have just bought a new NVME 4.0 drive.  Supposed to be 7000 mb/s read, so hopefully it will bring the loading times down.

 

It should make a difference yes -  but maybe not quite as much as you would initially think as a reasonable proportion of that load time is the CPU/GPU decompressing files and generally messing about getting stuff ready to go.

[MichaelLowl 63]

8 hours ago, Fielder said:

You only need to and only should copy and paste two folders that are inside your Packages folder, namely Community and Official. Do not move anything else, leave it where it is. Those 2 folders have 99% of the file volume anyway.

Create a new folder on your new drive, this folder can have any name at all.

Now rename your old Packages folder still at the old location so MSFS cannot see it. But the new folder you created to contain your new Community and Official folders at the new location should not be renamed. MSFS will be able see it when you browse to it at 'checking for updates' screen.

Do not alter any lines in any .cfg file.

Just close MSFS if it isn't already closed and then boot up MSFS again. At the 'checking for updates' screen, browse to your new location. MSFS will see your huge Community and Official folders all there in good shape and will not have to redownload anything. MSFS will proceed to open as normal

EDIT: You would have to keep both drives on your system using the above method. So that Windows can see both drives.

If you are going to remove a drive from the computer and replace it with another drive, then you just need to clone the old drive over to the new drive. For instance using the free version of Macrium Reflect. After that is all done and confirmed working, then you can reformat your old drive and use it somewhere. Such as putting it into a cheap case with a USB interface to plug in and out of your computer.

https://www.macrium.com/reflectfree

 

Thx for the suggestion. This method can't be used for me because win10 don't allow me (also as administrator) to move the copied files to an other drive.

Regards Michael

[Fielder 3,644]

Copying, moving, pasting, cutting etc. are all operating system controlled. But you can always clone a whole drive as there are no restrictions. Everything on the SSD is cloned over to the larger Nvme. So you then boot the computer from the Nvme drive. As far as Windows knows, the new Nvme drive is the old SDD drive.

Then you can erase the SSD and use it for a secondary drive via a SATA socket. This is the normal way of doing drive upgrades if a new Nvme drive is plugged right into a socket on the motherboard inside the case.

[MichaelLowl 63]

50 minutes ago, Fielder said:

Copying, moving, pasting, cutting etc. are all operating system controlled. But you can always clone a whole drive as there are no restrictions. Everything on the SSD is cloned over to the larger Nvme. So you then boot the computer from the Nvme drive. As far as Windows knows, the new Nvme drive is the old SDD drive.

Then you can erase the SSD and use it for a secondary drive via a SATA socket. This is the normal way of doing drive upgrades if a new Nvme drive is plugged right into a socket on the motherboard inside the case.

Thanks for this hint. Which software to you recommend for clone the drive?

[Fielder 3,644]

Macrium Reflect version 8, the freeware edition. Not the free trial edition. It's possible to select the wrong drives and clone the new empty drive over to the old drive full of Windows and programs. Then  you have 2 empty drives! So the main thing is to be sure which is target and which is source.

 

[cianpars 1,163]

11 minutes ago, MichaelLowl said:

Thanks for this hint. Which software to you recommend for clone the drive?

I used macrium reflect free, but acronis will do it too

Edited December 29, 2021 by cianpars

[Fielder 3,644]

This was the most helpful video I watched before I upgraded the motherboard drive.

 

[Sefardi 1]

This worked for me PERFECTLY (MS Store version) with NO additional procedures:

 

[Fielder 3,644]

8 hours ago, Sefardi said:

This worked for me PERFECTLY (MS Store version) with NO additional procedures:

 

[skysurfer 76]

On 9/3/2022 at 10:35 AM, Sefardi said:

This worked for me PERFECTLY (MS Store version) with NO additional procedures:

 

I watched this video but I didn’t quite understand which and where those files moved? That option only allows to move the sim to a new drive but it doesn’t give you an option to move the sim to the folder I need on the new drive. A bit confusing. 
What files will actually be moved and where exactly on the new drive?

Thanks.