So, I am going for it either later tonight.  I will sign up for the SU1 beta afterwards.

My question is, does anyone have any experience of installing it to anywhere other than the C drive.

I still have 900 gig left on my F drive NVMe SSD, and I would like it there (I believe the core files are only 20/30 gig anyway). 
I take it that by using Add-on linker I can also share the Community folder as long as I take MSFS2024 offending items out of circulation.

 

thanks for any help in advance.

Only thing I could do was:

- in the XBox App, under user settings, change install folder, and I moved the base install from "C :" to my "F:" partition.

It creates a replica of the root XBoxGames folder under F: 

- Install FS 2024 and it'll get installed into F:, or if already installed as you declare your other partition / folder as the new base for XBoxGames the content will be moved there.

Unfortunately this also creates some ancillary system folders there, and if for  instance your "F:" partition is your sims partition, like in my case, then those folders will look ugly mixed with the other ones, because as far as I can tell there's no way, like in FS 2020, to choose a partition / folder when the install starts.

Edited January 25, 20251 yr by jcomm

4 hours ago, bobcat999 said:

So, I am going for it either later tonight.  I will sign up for the SU1 beta afterwards.

My question is, does anyone have any experience of installing it to anywhere other than the C drive.

I still have 900 gig left on my F drive NVMe SSD, and I would like it there (I believe the core files are only 20/30 gig anyway). 
I take it that by using Add-on linker I can also share the Community folder as long as I take MSFS2024 offending items out of circulation.

 

thanks for any help in advance.

You can install 2024 on your C drive and put your community folder on your F drive. That's the one that will take up the most space. And use addon linker to manage your add ons the F drive.

4 hours ago, bobcat999 said:

So, I am going for it either later tonight.  I will sign up for the SU1 beta afterwards.

My question is, does anyone have any experience of installing it to anywhere other than the C drive.

I still have 900 gig left on my F drive NVMe SSD, and I would like it there (I believe the core files are only 20/30 gig anyway). 
I take it that by using Add-on linker I can also share the Community folder as long as I take MSFS2024 offending items out of circulation.

 

thanks for any help in advance.

I would also suggest installing MSFS on the C drive, and choosing to install the "Content" on your F drive.

That should be possible during the installation process, or you can edit the usercfg.opt file manually afterwards and set the last line to where you want the Content to be.  The only thing that could get big in the core files, is the rolling cache (16 GB default), but I believe you can also select a different location for it in the sim.

Edited January 25, 20251 yr by Bert Pieke

Yes, as people above say, put the community folder (which also moves all the streamed packages) to the new drive. And put your rolling cache there as well( you can change it inside the sim). 
 

That takes care of all the big files. 

I feel like owning MSFS via Steam is so much easier. I have my Steam Library to exist on the D drive with a 4tb SSD on it, and after installing the sim set the community folder to something like D:\FS2024 so I can find it easily.

No hassles at all.

6 hours ago, bobcat999 said:

I take it that by using Add-on linker I can also share the Community folder as long as I take MSFS2024 offending items out of circulation.

I would approach that the other way around.  Start with an empty Community folder and use the linker to selectively enable items.. including from your 2020 Community folder if that is where you keep things.

9 minutes ago, Georgleboui said:

I feel like owning MSFS via Steam is so much easier. I have my Steam Library to exist on the D drive with a 4tb SSD on it, and after installing the sim set the community folder to something like D:\FS2024 so I can find it easily.

No hassles at all.

It’s exactly the same with the store version. You can put the files wherever you like. 

In the Xbox app, you can click your profile picture and go to settings to modify your default installation directory. I believe you also get the option to change this when you first install the sim:

 

After the install (I don't remember being asked this during installation), you can modify the community folder location by opening the Marketplace, clicking My Library, and clicking the small gear icon next to search. No need to edit config files, although it isn't exactly intuitive changing this within the sim:

 

As you can see, I set the community folder location as the same location of the sim. Not sure if there is any reason not to do this, but I haven't had any issues yet (but I also don't mess with the beta releases and have nightly backups in the event an update wipes out these folders). If you want to be on the safe side, you may want to put the community folder in a location outside of the sim folder. In the end, this is what my folder structure looks like (I also changed the rolling cache directory to the Limitless subfolder):

 

The WindowsApps and WpSystem folders are created by the Xbox app when you change the install location. The Community, Official2020 and Official2024 subfolders are a result of changing the Community folder location to D:\XboxGames\Limitless. And the LocalCache subfolder is a result of changing the rolling cache directory to D:\XboxGames\Limitless\LocalCache.

The Content subfolder takes up ~10GB and the WpSystem folder takes up ~22GB (although I noticed a 16GB default rolling cache file that hasn't been accessed since November that I can probably delete). The WindowsApps folder just has a symbolic link to the D:\XboxGames\Limitless\Content directory and does not take up any space. So, if you let the Xbox app install in the default C:\ drive locations, you're looking at 16-32GB of space taken up on your C:\ drive.

Note the installation will still put files on your C:\ drive even if you change the default installation location, but they will mostly be symbolic links to the changed location that do not take up any space and under 10 megs of some other system files.

Edited January 26, 20251 yr by Funky D
Fixed folder locations and added C:\ drive info

3 hours ago, Funky D said:

Note the installation will still put files on your C:\ drive even if you change the default installation location, but they will mostly be symbolic links to the changed location that do not take up any space and under 10 megs of some other system files.

If you want to keep things clean and simple... just allow the core sim to install on the C drive.. avoids a whole bunch of links that could become troublesome over time..   Content on a different drive?  Yes!

38 minutes ago, Bert Pieke said:

If you want to keep things clean and simple... just allow the core sim to install on the C drive.. avoids a whole bunch of links that could become troublesome over time..   Content on a different drive?  Yes!

I believe even the Steam version will put symbolic links and a few files on your C:\ drive no matter where your Steam library is located (someone with the Steam version would need to confirm there are symlinks in their C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Limitless_8wekyb3d8bbwe folder). At its core MSFS 2020/2024 is a modern Windows app that runs in a container for security reasons, and all modern Windows apps link back to the C:\ drive for whatever reason. The symlinks won't cause any issue unless folders are manually deleted or edited. I think the Packages folder is locked down by default to keep people from browsing to it by accident.

I switched from MS Store MSFS2020 to Steam MSFS 2024 because :

- i ve been using steam for years and I know the program well compared to MS Store/Xbox app

- i find the update process easier

- i can install it into my steam library on D drive without experiencing the xbox "system folders" being recreated all over the place on the D drive 

There is a single "%APPDATA%\Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024" folder where I can find the Packages folder, UserOpts.cfg, Content.xml, ...

 

Only "downside" for me was that I had to set steam to launch at computer start so it could run its update before I need to start msfs. Running it on start also avoid having the steam window to open in full when you launch it manually iirc alothough there might be a startup switch to keep it minimized

10 hours ago, Bert Pieke said:

I would also suggest installing MSFS on the C drive, and choosing to install the "Content" on your F drive.

That should be possible during the installation process, or you can edit the usercfg.opt file manually afterwards and set the last line to where you want the Content to be.  The only thing that could get big in the core files, is the rolling cache (16 GB default), but I believe you can also select a different location for it in the sim.

Unfortunately, contrarily to FS 2020 during install there is no way in FS 2024 to point the Content folder "home" away from the default.

Unless you set the home folder of XBoxGames, in the XBoxApp settings to a different folder / partition, the only way will probably be through Addon Linker, but I opt not to use such apps 😕

Thanks for all the advice people!  I delayed my install to take it all in, but I will be going for it after breakfast this morning.  I will report back on how I get on.  

7 hours ago, jcomm said:

Unfortunately, contrarily to FS 2020 during install there is no way in FS 2024 to point the Content folder "home" away from the default.

That is why the manual method of editing the usercfg.opt file comes in handy.  Nice and tidy 🙂