Howard,

I didn't think anything was supposed to get installed outside the community folder. Nothing would surprise me but even so it might be worth just renaming the folder (.old on the end or something) and creating a new empty one and then trying to start ther sim again. If that works then you can just copy folders over one or two at a time back into the 'new' empty community folder and see if yhou can identify what's stopping you.

If that gets you back, then consider the addons linker for future use maybe.

And apologies if this has already been suggested and tried - I only skimmed the topic quickly.

cheers,

Andy

Edited April 28, 20224 yr by andy1252
typo

2 hours ago, DAD said:

Before going through a reinstall hassle, another idea may be to use the repair/reset option in win —> settings —> apps when selecting MSFS and one of the offered options there

Thanks Phil, I will try that first thing in the morning and let you know if successful.

2 hours ago, andy1252 said:

Howard,

I didn't think anything was supposed to get installed outside the community folder. Nothing would surprise me but even so it might be worth just renaming the folder (.old on the end or something) and creating a new empty one and then trying to start ther sim again. If that works then you can just copy folders over one or two at a time back into the 'new' empty community folder and see if yhou can identify what's stopping you.

If that gets you back, then consider the addons linker for future use maybe.

And apologies if this has already been suggested and tried - I only skimmed the topic quickly.

cheers,

Andy

Hi Andy, sure, I have all addons in addon linker, so I can separate most things during a reinstall. Just realised, I no longer run FSUIPC, but there are things like all my profiles from Axis&Ohs, streamdeck and MSFS profiles. Any idea where these will be? 

8 minutes ago, Rockliffe said:

Thanks Phil, I will try that first thing in the morning and let you know if successful.

Went once - some month ago - through these app settings/options for repair/reset and remember that one of the 2 options (reset IIRC) forced me to do a reinstall of MSFS. So start with repair first.

Besides, if you have/do a backup of your MSFS official and community folder anyway then a reinstall is rather quick if you point to your previous data (or copy that data into your desired MSFS folder) as it saves you the GB of downloads.

9 minutes ago, Rockliffe said:

Hi Andy, sure, I have all addons in addon linker, so I can separate most things during a reinstall. Just realised, I no longer run FSUIPC, but there are things like all my profiles from Axis&Ohs, streamdeck and MSFS profiles. Any idea where these will be? 

Not entirely sure re AAO/Streamdeck stuff. I have both but haven't set anything up yet but my understanding is that streamdeck stores its profiles in its own folders somewhere, and the AAO website just says "completely stand alone software - does not change config files or settings in the simulator" so presumably nothing in the MSFS folder. So nothing definite but I would hope that stuff is all filed away with the apps, not the sim

OK fellas, I decided to install a backup from the original Windows install, I always do a backup of vanilla Windows after a computer build. So no MSFS, just Windows. All goes well, drivers up to date, Windows updated, turn off all AV and defender, install MSFS from MS store, wouldn't have it, couldn't even get a click. Scratched my head for half a day, swearing and cursing, this is just absurd! Then.... hey, Jeronimo! I saw, for some reason that the computer clock was wrong by two hours, at this moment I didn't expect anything to change, but change it did. The moment I corrected the clock to the correct time, MS Store began to download MSFS. But now I have another issue (there's a surprise 😕) even after having selected my sim drive (G) for the install, which is a dedicated 2Tb SSD separate from the OS(C), MSFS has been installed elsewhere, somwehere on the main OS drive I guess. What the hell is the point of selecting a particular drive if the darn thing then installs somewhere else!! So I don't have my 2020 on the drive I selected. Can anyone advise where I have gone wrong with this. Cheers fellas.

Hey Rock!

Did you try this?

SYNCHRONIZE TIME SETTINGS

• Go back to Start, then select Settings > Time & Language.
• Select Date & Time and toggle the “Set time automatically setting" and “Set time zone automatically” to ON.
• Click on Synchronize your clock to synchronize your system's clock with an Internet time server.
• Then click Region, double-check that your country or region is correctly set up (for example if you live in Canada, make sure that the region isn’t automatically set to the USA or vice-versa)

Thanks to Bert Peike for posting this procedure- I've seen this fix two different issues for people that just appeared out of the blue.

Synchronize your computers time settings.

2 hours ago, skully said:

Hey Rock!

Did you try this?

SYNCHRONIZE TIME SETTINGS

• Go back to Start, then select Settings > Time & Language.
• Select Date & Time and toggle the “Set time automatically setting" and “Set time zone automatically” to ON.
• Click on Synchronize your clock to synchronize your system's clock with an Internet time server.
• Then click Region, double-check that your country or region is correctly set up (for example if you live in Canada, make sure that the region isn’t automatically set to the USA or vice-versa)

Thanks to Bert Peike for posting this procedure- I've seen this fix two different issues for people that just appeared out of the blue.

Synchronize your computers time settings.

Hi Skully, sure, sorry if I have not explained things properly. The installation is now OK, everything is working, it's just that my community folder and the one store folder have been installed onto my C drive and not on the separate G drive, even after selecting the G drive during the installation process. EDIT: Just realised, I can use AddOn linker.

Edited April 30, 20224 yr by Rockliffe

18 minutes ago, Rockliffe said:

Hi Skully, sure, sorry if I have not explained things properly. The installation is now OK, everything is working, it's just that my community folder and the one store folder have been installed onto my C drive and not on the separate G drive, even after selecting the G drive during the installation process. EDIT: Just realised, I can use AddOn linker.

No idea how that could happen. But I know that you can move apps - and thus MSFS- via settings —> apps —> MSFS to a different drive. Just yet another idea though 😉

@Rockcliffe glad to hear you have gotten the issue sorted and you are back on your way. 🙂 

9 hours ago, Rockliffe said:

Hi Skully, sure, sorry if I have not explained things properly. The installation is now OK, everything is working, it's just that my community folder and the one store folder have been installed onto my C drive and not on the separate G drive, even after selecting the G drive during the installation process. EDIT: Just realised, I can use AddOn linker.

Hi Howard,

wherever your MSFS has ended up, in the "Appdata\Local\Packages\MicrosoftFlightSImulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\" folder you see a "\Packages\" folder (that holds the community and onestore folders, but also a "UserCfg.opt" file. The last line in that is "InstalledPackagesPath =" and you can change that. Just put a new folder (I have one just called \MSFS) in the root of your chosen drive and create new "Community" and "Official" folders in that and then move the contents of current Community and Official folders from the installed location to the new one. The set the new location in the UserCfg.opt pointer.

That should do it. You can still use the addons linker but the target community folder (plus of course the official folder) is now on your desired SSD.

cheers,

Andy

12 minutes ago, andy1252 said:

Hi Howard,

wherever your MSFS has ended up, in the "Appdata\Local\Packages\MicrosoftFlightSImulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\" folder you see a "\Packages\" folder (that holds the community and onestore folders, but also a "UserCfg.opt" file. The last line in that is "InstalledPackagesPath =" and you can change that. Just put a new folder (I have one just called \MSFS) in the root of your chosen drive and create new "Community" and "Official" folders in that and then move the contents of current Community and Official folders from the installed location to the new one. The set the new location in the UserCfg.opt pointer.

That should do it. You can still use the addons linker but the target community folder (plus of course the official folder) is now on your desired SSD.

cheers,

Andy

Wow Andy, yiou've nailed it! That's exactly what I want to do. I'll follow your lead today and keep my fingers crossed. Thanks matey.

2 hours ago, andy1252 said:

Hi Howard,

wherever your MSFS has ended up, in the "Appdata\Local\Packages\MicrosoftFlightSImulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\" folder you see a "\Packages\" folder (that holds the community and onestore folders, but also a "UserCfg.opt" file. The last line in that is "InstalledPackagesPath =" and you can change that. Just put a new folder (I have one just called \MSFS) in the root of your chosen drive and create new "Community" and "Official" folders in that and then move the contents of current Community and Official folders from the installed location to the new one. The set the new location in the UserCfg.opt pointer.

That should do it. You can still use the addons linker but the target community folder (plus of course the official folder) is now on your desired SSD.

cheers,

Andy

Hi Andy, I should have known it wouldn't be as easy as it seemed  I have tried to copy the contents across to how you suggest, but get an error saying' Your organisation does not allow you to place this file here.' Any ideas? 

Edited May 1, 20224 yr by Rockliffe

Rocklife, I moved my installation like this (took 4 minutes):

Closed MSFS.

Next  I CUT Community and Official folders and PASTED them into a new folder which I had created called MSFS2020. By cutting and pasting instead of MOVING it took a few seconds. Then I booted up MSFS and it stopped on Checking for updates and told me I needed to update a couple hundred gigabytes. So I then when to the bottom of the MSFS window and changed the path from my old path to my new path which was C:\MSFS2020.

Because Community and Official were already in that new path, MSFS now changed that I need to update 1 megabyte or something like that. MSFS booted up with the program now in its new path.

However, since you are changing drives where MSFS is to be located you can't just CUT and PASTE in a few seconds, it will take a half hour or so to move 200 or 300 Gigabytes over to the other drive. Then boot up MSFS and tell the Checking for Updates screen where the new path is  and all should be well.

I did not have to alter userconfig.opt because that is just changing the path where MSFS looks. Instead I changed the path at the Checking for Updates screen.

Anyway, changing the path to where MSFS is located is just that easy. From one drive to another might take a half hour to copy the two folders Community and Official.

 

 

Hi Howard, easy one first - yes, the file is called "UserCfg.opt". Don't know what you use for editing such stuff but Notepad++ is my preferred editor - it'll let you edit and save in all sorts of formats without any worries, and it's freeware.

No real idea about the copy problem. Sounds like a permissions thing. What do you use for copying? It you're just using Windows' own file manager I can see that might be a problem. I haven't used a Microsoft file manager since before Windows, even in DOS it was a useless bit of junk. I use a program called Directory Opus these days, but that's sort of pricey if you just need it for one job like this. There may be decent freeware ones out there these days - I'll check it out. Did you Google the error message?

Did you try "move" or "Copy"? Maybe Copy would work where Move doesn't? I'm assuming the problem is with the Official folder rather than the Community folder?

If you've created the new empty folder (driveN\MSFS or whatever) and added the correct pointer in UserCfg.opt, what happens if you start the sim? It may be that it just comes up and moves the official folder stuff there itself automatically. That would be logical (so probably not what happens!) so might be worth a try.