47 minutes ago, Bigmack said:

All you have to do is keep a copy of your user.cfg file on another drive and just restore it when MS make a change to your internal settings.

Here is where mine is located even though I moved my MSFS to a different drive years ago,  

C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache    

the file name is usercfg.opt  and it is an encrypted file. 

8 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

and it is an encrypted file. 

Mine is in C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\UserCfg.opt, so same as yours.

It is - and has always been - unencrypted? Maybe something is wrong with your installation?

Mine is in the C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator folder, and it is unencrypted. However, I purchased my copy of MSFS 2020 from Steam.

16 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

However, I purchased my copy of MSFS 2020 from Steam.

Mine is from MS Store ...

1 hour ago, SierraDelta said:

Mine is in C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\UserCfg.opt, so same as yours.

It is - and has always been - unencrypted? Maybe something is wrong with your installation?

Well when I tried to copy it to another folder, Windows  11 told me it was an encrypted file. 

1 minute ago, Bobsk8 said:

Well when I tried to copy it to another folder, Windows  11 told me it was an encrypted file. 

Same,  it said it was encrypted and the location I was copying to could not use encrypted files, but it let me copy it anyway so no idea if it will copy back over to the packages folder if needed

Oh and I have at least 3 iterations of the Packages folder and the one that contained the UserCfg.opt file was not the one in the location suggested.

No idea what all thats about (MS Sore version)

3 minutes ago, Rusty Spanner said:

Same,  it said it was encrypted and the location I was copying to could not use encrypted files, but it let me copy it anyway so no idea if it will copy back over to the packages folder if needed

Oh and I have at least 3 iterations of the Packages folder and the one that contained the UserCfg.opt file was not the one in the location suggested.

No idea what all thats about (MS Sore version)

They make this so unnecessarily complicated. There should be a way to easily back up someone's settings. How hard is that to do?

Mine is in C:\Users\laser\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache. If I open it, it opens with notepad for editing. But I just highlight and copy and paste to the same folder or to another drive, which I do.

Edited February 23, 20251 yr by Bigmack

Well this is crazy.  I have a backup drive, and have used it for years, Macrium Reflect.  I just looked at my backup drive, and went to the folder with the Usercfg.opt. which was made in January of 2025.. Guess what, that file on my backup drive, according to the date next to the file, was written 15 minutes ago when my flight ended. How the heck is that possible?  

Did you ever get this fixed Bob? I have a friend in Australia who had the same exact problem.

On 2/24/2025 at 6:12 AM, Bobsk8 said:

Well when I tried to copy it to another folder, Windows  11 told me it was an encrypted file. 

bob than in windows setting  don't  know  where  since i seen  this issue on utube  there  is  a setting  that will encrypte your folders(bit locker encryption) which there is a setting  to turn this  feature off.  Maybe  this  is  not  related to  you issue  though but it is  certainly  related  to windows 11

 

Edited February 25, 20251 yr by pete_auau

On 2/23/2025 at 7:24 PM, Bobsk8 said:

They make this so unnecessarily complicated. There should be a way to easily back up someone's settings. How hard is that to do?

Many of us "voted" for all settings to be saved locally and easily back in 2020 on the official forums, needless to say that went unheard/ignored as it's the same with MSFS24 as well. 

It's quite simply poor game design to save mostly everything in the cloud and not locally, especially when these files are merely a few kb in size.

2 hours ago, MarcG said:

poor game design to save mostly everything in the cloud and not locally

Paranoid software publisher behavior in their interests alone and not the user. The whole point of the cloud originally was to provide users with a seamless safe way to have their local files backed up remotely off site. Safe from hardware faults, software crashes, viruses and thieves. Oh and user error. 

Now the tech is being reversed. You used to kind of own the software, yours to store and use for as long as your computer os could run it. Now you just lease it and to deter you from any ideas of ownership completely the local 'copy' is a ghost file. 

They knew what they were doing although they probably were contractually obligated to code it that way. 

Sorry if noob question from me but to Xbox users do you have local saves for any games or are they all in the cloud? Can you play without Internet or does it depend on the game? I know with steam you can go to offline mode and still play as there are local saves which will get synced with the cloud next time you go online. 

Occasionally a poorly coded game on steam will wipe your local save when as soon as it detects a cloud version even if the local is more recent. 

On 2/23/2025 at 4:05 PM, Bobsk8 said:

Well this is crazy.  I have a backup drive, and have used it for years, Macrium Reflect.  I just looked at my backup drive, and went to the folder with the Usercfg.opt. which was made in January of 2025.. Guess what, that file on my backup drive, according to the date next to the file, was written 15 minutes ago when my flight ended. How the heck is that possible?  

Did you get this fixed Bob?

Easy fix...done