I did exactly what you said:
- Found my Steam data folder.
- Backed up all files
- Deleted all files in the above folder
- Started MSFS (I also had the above folder visible on my screen)(Note: It DID NOT respond the way yours did. It DID NOT act as if I had just purchased the game today, nor ask me my experience settings, and DID NOT tell me it had found all my controllers and DID NOT completely load the game.)
- As MSFS loaded up, I saw the files repopulate in the folder. All had old dates, but I was expecting to see the current date.
- MSFS still crashed while loading.
What did I do wrong here? Where are these files being copied from? Their source seems to be the problem. Thanks for your with this so far.