Just that, I have a very small SSD drive for the system install, so I can’t install skins, airports, planes, etc. in there. I have a different drive for FS20 which should be able to handle these files. Please Asobo, this is a VERY SERIOUS issue for many people, there should be possible to have a comunity folder in the installation drive.
Anyone else?
what on earth are you talking about ?
Community folder is wherever you put the downloaded content, which can be anywhere you like.
Settings > System > Storage > Change Where New Content is Saved. I selected my new blank E: drive
I did this prior downloading anything at all from the Microsoft Store. When I hit install the only thing that went on my C: drive was a folder with about 350 K of config files. My entire sim, including the 1 gig of base files, community folder and all, is on my E: drive.
I distinctly remember being offered to select where to install the packages (the bulk of the sim), just clicking “Next” and accepting the default doesn’t mean it’s “mandatory”.
Mine are certainly not on the system drive.
For relocating the packages to a different location, see here:
Just to clarify: I’m talking about the “community” folder where all the community made content and 3rd party add-ons are stored. This is NOT available inside the big installation folder of the sim (where the 95gb is) but in “C” OS drive afaik. In my case that drive is very small so I won’t be able to install big add-ons like airports or cities so I would like asobo to make a proper “community” folder to store all that in a different drive, for instance the installation drive where the core of the sim is and the one you can chose to change when making the installation.
Hope it is clearer now.
could you elaborate?, how can I put that folder anywhere?
I’m not sure you installed things properly. I installed the sim itself from Microsoft Store direct to my external drive in a folder I named ‘MSFS 2020 Install’. When it installed there it created two folders inside:
‘Community’ and ‘Official’.
‘Community’ is where the 3rd-party stuff goes (nothing in there for now), ‘Official’ is the sim itself (95GB).
And that’s it. For the data caches, I set aside space on another drive. And, yes, I’m running MSFS 2020 off an external 2TB USB drive. All works fine.
Nothing but the barest minimum went onto my C drive.
There’s no mystery about any of this. You can choose exactly where to place everything prior to downloading and installing - you just have to think about it first and pay attention during install.
The app itself is by default stored on C (Windows app location). During installation you can choose a custom path for the contents, and also community folder… In my case default app is on C, rest is in folder D:\Flight Simulator. Community content is also on D. So no need to move the app…
Both “Community” and “Official” are under the packages folder
The packages folder is selectable during install (on first start of the sim, packages install is done by the sim’s Content Manager):
Post-install it is also possible to move the packages folder to a different location, as described in the post I linked.
Even the f you choose a drive of you choic, a portion of the install still goes to your C drive
Probably, but I really didn’t notice much of a change to my C drive (a 512GB SSD) after it had all installed to my external drive. I dunno - maybe 1GB of data went to the C drive? I have no idea.
Well, not really. The only FS-related things I have on the system drive is in %appdata%\Microsoft Flight Simulator - a whole lot of 17 MB of config files and bush trip saves.
If installing from MS Store, you can change the location of the core install beforehand (by changing where Windows Store installs new apps).
If installing from Steam, you can have a Steam library on a different drive and install there.
Roughly speaking the FS2020 install is 2-part - core (1GB) and packages managed by Content Manager (the rest).
You can have your entire sim and all addons on a different drive than C:
Only thing on my C: drive are a few config files equaling less than 1 meg
This is the location of my flight sim on my E: drive and it doesn’t even require the default name
This is my Community folder inside my simulator with several addons inside
Thanks all for the info, I didn’t mention I’m using the game pass version btw, so unless I can manually create a “community” folder inside my install folder, I don’t have such a directory. Will try to do so.
Ah, that may be the difference, not sure. Gamepass vs Microsoft Store.
I did the same as you did, using ms store with my game pass, selected a different drive for installation (as I made since ta1). However my main install folder lacks the official and community folders inside. These folders are located in the OS drive “C”, under appdata/local/packages/…
I’m not sure if this has been mentioned, but you can move your Community and Official folders together anywhere you like and then point the sim to the new location by changing the InstalledPackagesPath (the last line in this file) …
C:\Users[yourID]\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\UserCfg.opt
I am completely lost with this install process and don’t understand why MS makes things so complex (…)… Let me explain. I have selected a specific drive to install my Windows Store App (M:). Once I installed MSFS M was selected (I believe) for the 900 MB base. Then, when I started the sim, the package instal window came and I had 2 kind of info :
Now, when I checked my M: drive, I got 619 GB left out of 931 GB so I believe the largest part of the game was installed there. However, under C:, i got this Appdata / Local / package / Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb… folder that contains a few folder with a shortcut logo on thei icons (AC, AppData, LocalCache, LocalState…) I though they were just shortcut directing to my M: drive… The problem is that when I installed ORBX add-ons, and selected (install within FlightSimulator), those add-ons got installed in C: !!! Just now, I edited the Usercfg.opt file and noticed that the path at the bottom of the file was the same as the one I left in the install process (C:/appdata/local …)
I am lost.
When I go to the MS Store and selected the MSFS app “move app”, all drive except my M: drive appears showing that the app is indeed installed on M:
Is there a way to make sure everything is moved to M: including future package install ? How come the main packages (100gb) seemed to got installed under M: but that newly installed ORBX packages go into C: ?
In the install screen, should I have selected let’s say M:\MSFS 2020 as package install path instead of letting this C:\appdata\user\local… path ?
Thank you for your help.
If I want to change the path to my M: drive, should I create a folder MSFS and direct the path to there or should I keep the full link (appdata…) and just change the letter ?
