a really big wish here, how about patching the game (like the 11,5GB download of v1.8.3 today) without actually having to “run” the game? Admittedly it’s not using much CPU/RAM when updating, but still it’s using a significant amount of resources compared to some small-ish window with a progress bar and two buttons (pause/cancel)…and I’d like to maybe play another game while I wait 
Asobo / Ms has a “very poor” patch method. The latest patch @ 15.6 GB was just ridiculous. Why can’t they just give PC owners a “exe” type patch, and let me do a simple download which would take about 10 minutes with my connection. and then when the exe is run, the decompressing would take place at a much faster rate. But oh-no, you have to download, then decompress, rise and repeat many times. Instead I end up being almost an (1) hour before MSFS finished, and I was able to enter the sim.
I’ve never had any title in my life of gaming that was so slow, and a royal pain to update!
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Hi @W4Cgunner,
Yes the installer seems like it was designed by people without much production experience. I hope someone senior evaluates it and they get it right soon.
Thanks
Pauly
I asked a similar question in another thread but the “experts” told me it was impossible to patch locally, suggesting that sometimes very large files might need tweaking so the whole file needs to be downloaded again. See here:
1.8.4 took me over 5 hours to download/install. Worst of it is, it wasn’t worth 5 minutes, and with a patching system as you suggest - assuming this is what you’re asking for - it might have took less than 5 minutes.
You have my vote.
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Re-download is not a big option for me, I have Comtrash as an ISP, and I have a monthly cap that I come real close to exceeding every month. So I really don’t have the extra data available to have to download failed updates.
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I suspect the PC patching method has more to do with the “stinking” Ms Store being linked to everything in the Sim, just one more “poor” design. Lets face it, ever since Bill started paying lower salaries, everything having to do with Ms has went downhill, especially Win 10 and its updates. Whatever brain-child had the idea of the Ms Store for a delivery system should have been fired on the spot. Things are suppose to get better when technology advances, but I guess everyone at Ms didn’t get the memo, and they have taken us back 10 - 15 years.
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Disagree - 10-15 years ago we didn’t have to download entire files, we were given proper patching technologies. Devs today seem to think we are all on infinite data limits and 1GB up/down bandwidths, hence too lazy to patch rather than replace. 
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Well i see what you are concerned of but i think you already discovered the content manager in the sim. There you can see that Asobo devided the game content in many different packages which makes it possible that we can uninstall things we dont like/need (for example i uninstalled all the flight trainings after finishing them).
If the whole game would be updated with one single patch .exe file than you always update everything and you have no longer the possibility to sort unwanted content out.
Annother problem is the problem that there are 3 diffent versions of the sim (standard, deluxe, premium deluxe) with different content. So again there have to be 3 .exe patch files because nobody wants to download more data than he actually needs for his version. Premium deluxe owner have to download the biggest patch and a standard user dont want to download a file that contains the patch for his version but on top also the data for the “better” versions.
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Other games have a pretty smart version of patch method when changing large files. For example world of warcraft which download patch bundles which dynamically patches data as the game loads, instead of patchng large files and rewriting them on disk causing network or disk issues. However i think its not Asobos fault, suspicion is that they have to use the xbox libraries and infrastructure beacus of MS reasons.
I have never had a problem downloading the sim or any of the patches. Its been quick and easy. Just because it didn’t work for you doesn’t make it bad or poor. With over a million customers a relatively small number of people will have problems no matter what the installation method is.
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Who said anything about having problems? The issue is with the extremely inefficient method they choose to use.
I get “large” patches for all types of games, and normally we’re talking files that are larger than any of MSFS patches, these patches take next to no time compared to MSFS.
M4V3R1CKPRO;
You could still do what you are talking about, but you could download the entire patch, have it decompress, and then install, this would still be faster than the way Ms has set it up. There’s no reason to down a few files, stop, pause, stutter, decompress, then start downloading again, then repeat and rinse a tone of times. There is No reason why a 15GB patch should take an hour to download / install. Just plane (pun) inefficient on Ms part.
My PC is no slouch when comes to decompressing data either.
I think the Asobo way to do the patches can be acceptable if you have a solid and fast network connecting (100MBits+). For users with a weaker bandwith and maybe a weaker system it might be a real pain. For my site i’m happy with this method. The last patch took me about 25 min and it’s ok because in the meantime i had some lunch 
I can confirm
Never had any download problem even during the Alpha test period
I have a good internet connection, and a gaming laptop
I have a high-end gaming PC (custom built), my connection is rock solid @ 250Mbps down / 15Mbps down, and it still takes forever. I’ve I had a patch of this same size for another game, it would take me 10 minutes, as compared to an hour it took for MSFS latest patch. Retired IT professional, believe me, the update process is poor, and it could be greatly approved on, and streamlined.
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Hmm i fully believe you but than it has something todo with the region you are in and the number of user that downloaded that patch with you 
Maybe Microsoft can tell you a bit more about their server workload.
I’m loving the fact that a lot of people seem to believe they know better than the professional software developers at one of the biggest organisations in the world who are paid to do this stuff for a living. I’m 100% sure there are good reasons for doing the patch the way it is done and it isn’t just because they all stood around the coffee machine one morning discussing how they can make the patch system really annoying and upsetting for everybody. I for one have no issue with the current approach and so I won’t be voting for this.
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I’ve posted one possible solution which worked for me here - this, at least, has solved download / update resetting in MSFS for me:
https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/patch-update-fails/279656/4
Please make an external download manager, waiting for 20GB of content download with no ability to do anything else (for example to play Forza Motorsport 7) during the download kills my patience. Why eat up all of the PC’s resources while only downloading and decompressing packages without any actual workload for the CPU and GPU?
Hi, so I did a clean install of Flight Simulator for the first time since it originally launched and it showed me just how confusing the Content Manager can be.
When you do a clean install - the content manager seems to download some more additional content after the initial installation is complete (I purchased the Deluxe version so I guess it’s that additional content it downloads) - but then there are various updates also in my content manager (the updates that went live after the game’s initial release, including the Japan update for example) - and I can add more through the marketplace.
The confusing thing here is mainly the UI.
If I “select all” in the content manager, it will actually deselect them again until the additional content that it was already downloading initially is complete.
Only after that is complete, can you download all the other content.
What also doesn’t help is that the download progress is represented by a progress bar that tracks “total downloaded” instead of “total left to download”.
The other annoying thing is that unless you’re in the content manager - you don’t actually know that packages are available for download or even that the program is downloading any updates.
I would not be surprised if people reading this - go check their content manager only to find available updates they weren’t aware of.
I would therefore HIGHLY recommend that you consider building out an external launcher for this game and move the content manager out of the game. It also doesn’t help that I need to be in the game and the game needs to be running in order for me to download 80+ gigs of extra content.
Since I just went through a complete reinstallation since updating the game from my October version screwed my G1000 completely (no airports or anything other than terrain and couldn’t set any routes).
This reinstallation kept my PC ON for 24 hours, running my GPU at 100%, just for the entire download to happen. Once the download finished, only the MANDATORY package was installed, then I sat through 35GB of the other packages to download only to not install them (one package failed, but it continued downloading everything and not install anything).
So now I am installing every single piece in the content manager item by item.
All while using very little of my bandwith (i have 500/500 SOLID, but MSFS is only using 30-50mbps).
I don’t understand why people are not upvoting this more. We need at least the mandatory packages to be installed along with the main installation of the game. What’s the point of forcing people through the game if they need to download it anyway.
I know why, they want to be able to update small pieces of content without putting out a full update on the stores. But they don’t - they wait for weeks on end to deliver fixes to CRIPPLING BUGS.
So then, here’s some OPTIONS:
- external launcher as OP recommends to download everything, maybe less buggy than the in-game content manager
- keep the in-game content manager but unlock full bandwith, not the cringe 30mbps we are getting here with solid internet connections. And fix the bugs so we don’t have huge downloads fail
- Do what every other game does and update the whole game for every update. Stores do the diff automatically and build uploading to store repositories can be automated once validated by QC. (Oh yeah, and have a QC validation on the builds you want to put out, jesus).
Sorry, i need to vent. I have never in my life spent 24 hours installing (well, reinstalling) a game.