Yes , Torrent.
Link in a sticky in “News and Announcements”
Maybe mail the users ( goes in one click for as many as needed , nowadays )
Let the MSFS 2020 community help it out.
MSFS 2020 is totally protected and originated at 2 sources only ( as I undestand it ).
MS Store or XBOX platform validates user account and proof of purchase…
Steam the same.
Finally , the “real product” only servers its pourpose if it is used “online”
So ?
No mounstruous cloud servers to pay for and bandwith to deal with.
Every one involved would contribute.
One big compressed file with each folder updated + launcher + installer file in it.
Torrents, by design, are insecure. You would also have to build a torrent client into MSFS and we can only ask the gods themselves what problems that would cause.
I’m not an expert but i think with torrents anybody could ship malware with every update. You are not downloading from a secure server and with torrents Asobo can’t guarantee clean files.
Torrents download data from multiple machines. Who owns those machines? hard to say, and there is potential, as noted by another, that the data could be tampered with and essentially pollute the Torrent with malware so new users joining the torrent get infected files and subsequently distribute those files to others. Microsoft would simply not allow it, even if the chance is slim. There would be potential legal liability and the level of trust needed for users to accept this distribution method is unlikely to be forthcoming.
And my impression is that “Torrent” or P2P has been demonized because of its widespread use for distributing illegal “copies” of pretty much everything.
Not insecure in itself. Files can be checked before use.
MS and Steam stage their downloads on cloud systems, and almost certainly use caching / content delivery networks to distribute the content around the world. This likely applies both to the software/update downloads, as well as the scenery data. This doesn’t mean “monstrous cloud servers”, it means lots of smallish systems which serve lots of data, not just FS.
Torrents add risk and reduce security. And plenty if users (like me) would say “hell, no” and block torrent access anyway.
And yet Windows updates are already distributed this way.
In the last two weeks, my PC has downloaded 183 MB updates directly from Microsoft and 586 MB from various other Windows users. My PC has also uploaded more than 700 MB to other users.
The technology is here. Microsoft is already using it. It shouldn’t be that hard to make it work in MSFS too.
ok. I just put this because I have read that stament in this same forum as an excuse for the troublesome download process we have now.
I take your point.
Whatever is is your seeing on that window has nothing to do with distributing updates. For the record, under all categories for me it shows N/A which makes sense since I have no other computers on my network and I do not remote access other systems from my network.
