I have a quick question. I have MSFS installed on a 500gb ssd which is clearly not enough after some time installing hundreds of add-ons. I have a 980 pro 1tb installed in my pc as well with nothing on it. What is the easiest way to transfer all of my mods and sim on to the 980? should I just delete msfs and reinstall on my 980? or is there an easier and faster way to move everything? If I delete and reinstall that could take me hours as I have over 450 mods in my community folder. Its the Steam version btw ..Thanks for the help!
I did that once. No, you don’t need to reinstall the whole Sims.
The idea is to copy yourself the most biggest directories “Official” and “Community”, where they should land on your new drive.
For me those folders are currently under "f:\Games\MSFS2020", and the main game directory (with the .exe) is in “F:\Games\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\MicrosoftFlightSimulator”
After that you uninstall the Sim through Steam, and you reinstall it. When MSFS ask for the target directory, provide the new path on your new drive where “Community” and “Official” are. It will find than the 2 big folders are already their, will not download them, and will only install the main directory.
The base simulator install size is about 125GB. It’s quite substantial, but with 3rd party addons, it can quickly grow. It has shown that having a custom install path for the sim repository is safer in terms of resilience when updating, and makes it easier to access your Community folder. We recommend having the sim files on an SSD, but alternatively an HDD can be used as well. Though possible, do not have the sim files stored on a removable device as this cause instabilities, lag/stuttering and worst case drive failure, as these drives usually aren’t meant to be used for continuous reading/writing of large amounts of data. To move your filesystem, you need to know where your default install location is (do !cf in bot-commands if you’re unsure, or just ask).
Create a folder you want to house the Official and Community folder in. Examples can be C:\MSFS, D:\MSFS or similar. Name of the folder doesn’t matter, but make it as short and easily accessible as you can.
Go to where your sim is installed today, it should reside inside a folder called “Packages”.
Mark the two folders named Official and Community, then CUT (CTRL+X) the two folders from the default install location and paste them (CTRL+V) into the folder you made in step 1. Keep in mind that this step can take some time depending on how fast your drives are.
Ensure that your new files are accessible in the new location, so if you installed to D:\MSFS you should now see two folders inside called Official & Community.
Launch the simulator, and when you’re presented with the install screen, click the box where you see the install location, and choose the folder you created earlier. This should for example be D:\MSFS, and not D:\MSFS\Official.
It should take a second for the simulator to recognize the files, but it will launch into the main menu as normal again. This last step should only have to be done once.
So I need to move Official folder as well as the community folder from old drive to new drive then also move the main game directory to the new drive but not the same sub folder because that will be a whole dfferent folder under steam apps. correct? or can i just move the official and community folder to the new drive uninstall and then reinstall to the new drive?
Hi.
If I got it right all I need is to move the official and community folders to the new drive and start MSFS that it will ask where the folders went? Or I need to uninstall it from steam and install it again? I got confused.
For anyone interested in doing this, just a small but very important PSA:
Do NOT EVER move the installation of MSFS through Steam BEFORE changing the name of the “Official” folder or the folder’s name where all the packages are.
I am just in a totally stupid situation (Steam’s fault I would say) that I have to re-download everything again.
I think it’s the same issue as people reported THREE YEARS BACK that happens if you VERIFY the MSFS installation through Steam. At least I’m glad that I learned about this, so I’ll avoid it in the future.
TL;DR:
If you want to move your base installation using the Steam interface, FIRST go to your Packages or “Official” folder and change its name. Just call it whatever you want, so Steam won’t be able to find it and simply delete it. After that, when launching MSFS it should ask as usual where the folder is and you’ll can rename it and locate it. Will save you HOURS of trouble.
I haven’t seen an answer to this specifically.
I have ssd installed on my motherboard with room for only one drive. It is 500 GB (Drive C). I have the operating system and flt sim on this drive and it is full. I have a second drive that isn’t ssd that is another 500 GB (Drive D). This one is empty. Ideally I would want to remove the ssd drive and install a 2 TB drive in its place. Is that possible and I’m asking because Windows 11 is on that existing drive. Can I move what’s on drive C to Drive D temporarily while I remove C and replace it?
I hope I explained this correctly and thank for any suggestions.
Lenny
The easiest way is to find the Packages folder and save a copy elsewhere (even if that means an externally connected drive - it will be slow but worth it).
Then do whatever it is you need to do internal drive wise to the PC, including OS reinstall.
Once that’s done, re-install the Steam Client, and make a Library specific to the second drive (i.e., two physical drives C and D, OS is on C) - i.e., D:\Steam is now the new Library path. Create a new folder called MSFS there.
Copy the Packages folder to D:\Steam\MSFS. When the FS Installer launches, you’re going to get a chance to specify the path to where you want the sim installed to - specify D:\Steam\MSFS. It will take a few seconds, but it will detect all the Packages there and start pushing down the missing files, which is considerably less than 170 GB base install.
