Back up large download file

[InsaneLizard51]

As anyone found a way to back up the large 100+ gig for this program and been able to re use it in the event of the game crashing and needed to be downloaded again without the need to download such a large amount of data again to reinstall.

[tamalien]

I have (and always have!)

There are a couple of ways this can be achieved…

1. Do not use the default directory structure used by the content manager when it suggests a directory to install the ingame content. By default (for the MS Store version) this places the downloaded content in a folder that can be deleted when the game is uninstalled. If instead one uses a custom directory, (C:\MSFS in my case) then these downloaded files will not be deleted if the game is uninstalled.

2. For the MS store version browse to C:\Users(Your user name here)\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Packages\ and copy all the contents to another directory on your PC…You have now backed up the downloaded data (and your community folder as well-if that is also in the default location)

It is possible to change the location of this directory by moving it to another folder and then editing UserCfg.opt (with a text editor) whose last line points to where this data is stored under: InstalledPackagesPath “Path goes here”, e.g. mine reads InstalledPackagesPath “C:\msfs”

This file is located (for MS Store version) at C:\Users(Your user name here)\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\

[EddieSimes]

I have previously successfully backed-up the packages folder and then re-used that after a new install, which saved the epic download (which cut down the re-installation process by a few hours)

When the core application was installed, it asked for a packages location, and when I selected the pre-downloaded packages folder, it used the existing folder instead of downloading it all again. I haven’t needed to do it again for a long time so I’m assuming the process is still the same.