Putting together a new PC build today.  So that means getting MSFS on that new PC.  It was bought via the MS Store.  Should I try to copy the Official and Community folders to the new PC and let MS/MS Store hopefully fill in the gaps for setting up the rest or just download from scratch.  Saw lots of posts/vids on moving to a new SSD/HDD but thats on the same PC.  Not much on moving/installing on a new PC.  I am ok doing it either way but just wanted to hear from anyone that has done somthing similar,

Thx, Clutch

You can just move your existing Official/Community folders, when you reinstall the sim just point the installer to where they are now.

Edited June 18, 20224 yr by Tuskin38

Sounds like a disaster waiting ot happen, to try and move files to the new PC, other than the community folder. I would just reinstall the sim on the new PC, and the copy and paste the community folder. 

As Bob said above, I'd just move the Community folder and leave everything else to MS Store to re-download. Will probably save you a ton of headaches.

Move Community. Move Official. Don't move anything else. MSFS will fill in the needed new system files. Community and Official have to be in the same folder. That folder they will be in together does not have to be called Packages, it can have any name.

4 hours ago, Bobsk8 said:

Sounds like a disaster waiting ot happen, to try and move files to the new PC, other than the community folder. I would just reinstall the sim on the new PC, and the copy and paste the community folder. 

 

3 hours ago, Tom Wright said:

As Bob said above, I'd just move the Community folder and leave everything else to MS Store to re-download. Will probably save you a ton of headaches.

I've moved the official folder between a few installs, I've had zero issues.

Hell I've moved an MS Store Official folder to a Steam install, and worked fine. I had the gamepass version, then later bought it on Steam, didn't feel like redownloading everything, so I decided to test to see if it would work, and it did. I had no issues. Back when only the MS Store version had Betas, moved the files over to steam the night before the patch so I wouldn't have to download all of it in the morning, just whatever changes they made between the Beta build and the final.

The "official' folder is acts exactly the same as the community folder, it just holds official/Marketplace packages instead of community ones. There's nothing special in it like EXEs or config files. All that stuff is stored elsewhere.

Edited June 18, 20224 yr by Tuskin38

Hey, Clutch.Can you put the old drive into your new motherboard, in a different slot, and transfer everything over? 

like cloning it? 

Edited June 18, 20224 yr by simaddict

I just had to do a reinstall. Just left the Community and Official folders in place (I've got them in D:\MSFS). Then I uninstalled MSFS and did a reinstall from the Xbox app. Everything that was needed was around a 1Gb download, then some syncing after startup and I was good to go. No need to go through everything from scratch and download the whole ordeal - in my case around 200Gb. And that's of course excluding all freeware and payware addons. 

Edited June 19, 20224 yr by Cpt_Piett

I did a reinstall yesterday because I want to start fresh with that addon manager app. Just picking uninstall in steam does not do it. I found that I had to manually delete the Microsoft Flight Simulator folders on my machine. Then I was still a bit bemused to find that my steam folder on my PC still had 130gb left in it!

Copy all of Community and Official onto the new computer. Let MSFS fill in the other stuff (which as Capt_Piett says will  be very small and take very little time to download). 

I also believe the following is true: You can still run MSFS on the old computer too. Apparently, their license permits that. If so, you would be signing onto MSFS with same gamertag and password on both computers. I believe the computers can have way different addons, marketplace or otherwise and that it doesn't matter a fig to Microsoft. At sign on from either computer, MSFS will check to which marketplace purchased stuff your gamertag and password owns the rights to. From what I read elsewhere, MSFS will not care about  how much or how little you have of 3rd party freeware nor non marketplace payware on either of the two systems in Community. 

Edited June 20, 20224 yr by Fielder

8 hours ago, Fielder said:

Copy all of Community and Official onto the new computer. Let MSFS fill in the other stuff (which as Capt_Piett says will  be very small and take very little time to download). 

I also believe the following is true: You can still run MSFS on the old computer too. Apparently, their license permits that. If so, you would be signing onto MSFS with same gamertag and password on both computers. I believe the computers can have way different addons, marketplace or otherwise and that it doesn't matter a fig to Microsoft. At sign on from either computer, MSFS will check to which marketplace purchased stuff your gamertag and password owns the rights to. From what I read elsewhere, MSFS will not care about  how much or how little you have of 3rd party freeware nor non marketplace payware on either of the two systems in Community. 

Looks like some good advice here,

I will be installing a new CPU/motherboard/RAM this weekend. My MSFS installation is on it's own WD 1 TB NVME drive, should I just delete everything on that drive except the community & official folders then once installed on my new motherboard install MSFS from the Microsoft Store and point the installation towards that drive?

Thanks in advance

Richard

Unless you have really terrible internet, just reinstall.  I recently reinstalled just to "clean house" and other than the obvious time consuming download, it is simple.  I use it as a time to clean out add-ons that I never use and/or may have stopped being updated. 

Thx guys for such quick replies.  Since I am installing into one of the newer M2 SSDs a simple swap out of old PC into the new is not an option.  Think I will first just copy over the Offical and Community folders and see what happens.  The disk drive will be the same letter.  As some of you said MSFS will do the rest.  If there's issue I will then just re-download the whole shebang.  Not a big deal.  

Really looking forward to see how the new girl performs! 😁 

2 minutes ago, Clutch Cargo said:

Thx guys for such quick replies.  Since I am installing into one of the newer M2 SSDs a simple swap out of old PC into the new is not an option.  Think I will first just copy over the Offical and Community folders and see what happens.  The disk drive will be the same letter.  As some of you said MSFS will do the rest.  If there's issue I will then just re-download the whole shebang.  Not a big deal.  

Really looking forward to see how the new girl performs! 😁 

Let me know what pain you run into so I can be prepared lol

I am hoping that it will be straight forward as I will be moving the NVME drive to the new motherboard

3 hours ago, RJC68 said:

Looks like some good advice here,

I will be installing a new CPU/motherboard/RAM this weekend. My MSFS installation is on it's own WD 1 TB NVME drive, should I just delete everything on that drive except the community & official folders then once installed on my new motherboard install MSFS from the Microsoft Store and point the installation towards that drive?

Thanks in advance

Richard

1) Move the community and official folders to another folder (preferable on the same SSD, that'll be quicker). 

2) Delete MSFS from either Steam menu or Microsoft store. 

3) Move the community and official folders back to where you want the sim installed (I've got it set for D:\MSFS).

4) Reinstall MSFS. Important: Choose the folder where you've got the community and official folders. Installing the sim from should only be ~1Gb.

5) When starting the sim for the first time, it might ask for a folder to install some updates. Choose the folder that you installed the sim to. It will do some syncing during first load, but once you reach the main menu, everything should be there. 

Graphics settings might have to be adjusted, like choosing full screen etc, but all the controller settings is linked to your Xbox account. 

Edited June 20, 20224 yr by Cpt_Piett