I'm building a new rig, primarily for P3D and MSFS. What is the most humane (and legal) to move flight sim files from one to the other.  I have very large installations of these sims plus ORBIX and a few others. Can I use my existing license numbers to download a fresh installations to the new drives?  Should I try to clone the drives?  That would leave all the old junk on the new drives. Do I have to re-purchase the sims?

Thanks.

I have always wondered that when moving a flightsim installation, cloning or restoring from a back up, what happens with the registry settings and other add on settings that might reside on a different drive?

45 minutes ago, kevinc5 said:

I'm building a new rig, primarily for P3D and MSFS. What is the most humane (and legal) to move flight sim files from one to the other.  I have very large installations of these sims plus ORBIX and a few others. Can I use my existing license numbers to download a fresh installations to the new drives?  Should I try to clone the drives?  That would leave all the old junk on the new drives. Do I have to re-purchase the sims?

Thanks.

You don’t have to repurchase MSFS, P3D or any add-ons when moving to a new computer. Whenever, I build a new machine I deactivate any licenses that require it and/or uninstall the software, such as PMDG planes or FSL products. ORBX makes it easy too. 
 

if you are starting a new machine you should start with clean installs. Yes, it takes more time, but it is also an opportunity to clean things up, reorganize, etc. 

Existing license number should work just fine. Occasionally you have to ping a dev if it doesn’t want to deactivate. 

You can move an ORBX library, but last time I just redownloaded the files.

You need to deactive P3D before installing on the new PC, That`s why keep a copy of my activation codes in special folder.

Uninstalling\Deactivating Prepar3D v3 & v4 - Prepar3D Tips, Tricks and How To's - The AVSIM Community

If you have any PMDG aircraft they must be deactivated also before moving.

Generally speaking, you're way ahead to rebuild Rome from the ground up when moving P3D to a new build.  As mentioned above, you'll need to deactivate and/or uninstall any add-ons that require it to preserve licensing, and make sure to do that before uninstalling P3D itself, as some of the add-ons are deactivated from within P3D (e.g. PMDG acft, FSDreamteam sceneries and utilities).  I have found that cloning my P3D drive prior to starting the uninstall process allows me to install add-ons on the new build using the installer (which activates licensing on the new computer), and then I have the option of copying the old configuration over the fresh install with all my customizations intact (and there are literally thousands of those on my machine).

MSFS is a bit simpler--at least with the Steam version.  Backup your entire MSFS drive (or folders), and turn off and delete your rolling cache.  When you install MSFS in Steam on the new box, it'll install the Steam front end and then start MSFS and ask you for the install directory.  Once it starts to do the big download from the Azure servers, escape out, quit the sim, and then copy over your old MSFS directory into that location.  Ideally, you want to set the MSFS base folder path to be the same as in the old installation so that the paths stored in the cloud still work the same.  When you restart MSFS, it'll find and recognize the packages directory and won't re-download all 100+ GB again.  As for MSFS add-ons, I'd imagine they'll need to be reinstalled using the installer.  Might take some research ahead of time to see if any require deactivation before taking down the old machine.

 

 

@kevinc5

I just did it the last week. I also have countless addons installed and to start from scratch was too much of work. I also wanted to transfer my Windows licence to the new system.

I first uninstalled the P3D5 client and deactivated the licence. Then took the ssd drive and put it into the new computer. It took a while for the bios to find the os drive, since I already had an empty faster ssd in the first slot. After the system was booted, I could clone the drive to the new one. Took the old ssd out and since then it started from the new drive. The old ssd is used for the old computer again for office works. 

I forgot to uninstall client from P3D4, which I have installed too. I uninstalled the client after the move. It said it was successful. So maybe it is not that much needed to be done in advance.

RealityXP GTN said it had become invalid, so I had to uninstall afterwards and reinstall it. It works now. Active Sky also mentioned a new machine and I got a code mailed. After confirming it was still me, it works again. 

Starting from scratch to have a clean system is kind of an illiusion. I never had a problem which forced me to kill everything and do a fresh install of everything. There's always a solution to a problem but for some people it seems to be easier to format the drive, than to think what causes the problem. A well maintained system can run for years.

Dan

 

I prefer reinstall all my addons.

2 hours ago, Juliet Alpha said:

I prefer reinstall all my addons.

I'm the same if your installing on a new rig your better off installing afresh as your just moving stuff that might not run as efficient as it use to , I know its a pain in the neck but if your got a new PC you might as well do a clean install

6 hours ago, Juliet Alpha said:

I prefer reinstall all my addons.

That’s my plan once I have a new machine late summer. It doesn’t take long to install P3D, Active Sky, PMDG aircraft and other one-off programs.

The airports can be added gradually over time. I have 150 so it will take a few weeks. AIG will be comparatively simple. Install the basic program then copy everything from a backup.

11 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

That’s my plan once I have a new machine late summer. It doesn’t take long to install P3D, Active Sky, PMDG aircraft and other one-off programs.

The airports can be added gradually over time. I have 150 so it will take a few weeks. AIG will be comparatively simple. Install the basic program then copy everything from a backup.

@Juliet Alpha

@jason74

Don't forget to uninstall everything first to get the install counter to the max available again ...

It is funny, like you guys always want to do it the hardway and assume it creates problems if not freshly installed everything, although you never tried it the other way.

Dan

11 minutes ago, blaunarwal said:

 

Don't forget to uninstall everything first to get the install counter to the max available again ...

It is funny, like you guys always want to do it the hardway and assume it creates problems if not freshly installed everything, although you never tried it the other way.

Dan

Yes, I omitted that important point. I tried copying FlyTampa St Maatens instead of installing a while back and it just ate all available memory until none was left. A clever anti-piracy tactic.

I’m sure other scenery won’t have that feature but time is not a problem when you’re retired. 😉

Just now, blaunarwal said:

It is funny, like you guys always want to do it the hardway and assume it creates problems if not freshly installed everything, although you never tried it the other way.

Oh no, I've tried transplanting my sim install to a new system several times before, and following day after frustrating day of playing whack-a-mole dealing with all the problems that cropped up (and kept cropping up), I decided to clear the decks and rebuild from scratch.  There are few things more aggravating than planning a flight and then finding that the airport scenery won't load because the installer was never run on the new machine and the license is invalid.

In the process, every time I've done it (about once every couple of years), I always find stuff I would have otherwise missed (e.g. sceneries that have been updated), and I leave out add-ons that were installed but proved underwhelming and unwanted.  It does serve as a spring cleaning of sorts...can't imagine what my config would look like with 5-10 years of vestigial baggage dragged along from machine to machine.

But...to each his own. 

6 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I’m sure other scenery won’t have that feature but time is not a problem when you’re retired.

Actually, it is the lack of time which is THE problem. Waiting for sim updates or the "next big thing" to arrive, who knows when, is the problem for retirees. After all, there are only so many years left before you personally expire. 😞

6 hours ago, Bob Scott said:

There are few things more aggravating than planning a flight and then finding that the airport scenery won't load because the installer was never run on the new machine and the license is invalid.

A good example would be "WX Advantage Weather Radar". Arguably a must-have for some study level aircraft. First sold by Rex and then Milviz. And now it's not available for sale anywhere. Too bad if you lost your registration details. Another good example is stuff from Realair Simulations ie. Turbine Duke and the Lancair Legacy. Realair is now gone.

Edited June 5, 20232 yr by Matt Sdeel

10 minutes ago, Matt Sdeel said:

Actually, it is the lack of time which is THE problem. Waiting for sim updates or the "next big thing" to arrive, who knows when, is the problem for retirees. After all, there are only so many years left before you personally expire. 😞

Agreed none of us lives forever but hopefully I’ve still got a few years left. 😉