Moving DCS to a new drive

[Ranger1882]

Hi All

Does anyone have recent experience of moving DCS instal to a new drive?

My old drive is nearly full and so I'm looking go move DCS to a new SSD drive, so am looking for the easiest way to do it for a pc novice like me.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[MAXsenna]

Hi All
Does anyone have recent experience of moving DCS instal to a new drive?
My old drive is nearly full and so I'm looking go move DCS to a new SSD drive, so am looking for the easiest way to do it for a pc novice like me.
Thanks in advance for any help.

Just move the complete Eagle Dynamics folder and update the path in shortcuts. Do a full repair. That's it.

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk

[metalrockerlion62]

I have just moved all the files into a new SSD drive "E" I  copy all files from the c program via cut and paste unto the new drive, I don't mess with the shortcut on the desktop But copy that Short cut the drive of the SSD drive I want to DCS go too. After that. I open properties and at the first opening of the location you will see the old path of C:\Program file\EagleDynamics\DCS _world\Updater.exe. That needs to change For example "E:\Eagle Dynamics \Dcs world|\bin\Updater.exe  that will be the top box of the dialogue the lower box needs this E:\Eagle Dynamics\Dcs world 

I used the EXE on the desk top of World bete but Dcs World should only Say DCS  world not open beta 

[Django]

Does this method work if moving the DCS installation to a new system or must I run the installer again?

[Flappie]

A copy-paste works just fine. Simply add this extra step: once the copy is over, run a DCS repair in "slow" mode.

[Senchay]

Hello.

Did someone try this recently? I think i have an issue with this.

I had DCS on F, but 500 GB was not enough. Now i got a 1TB SSD, moved the files over there, changed the paths for the desktop icons and the sim runs. That is not the issue.
I also ran the repair (full). But whenever i update, i can see its trying to fetch the file list from F (old location). Its updating to G but it still requires the stuff on F, as it seems.

How can one change the path internally for the updater index? 

DCS 2.9.x
Win 11

Edited February 26 by Senchay

[TheBiggerBass]

How can I move Saved Games\DCS to another drive ?

[BIGNEWY]

15 minutes ago, TheBiggerBass said:

How can I move Saved Games\DCS to another drive ?

Saved Games is a windows folder, it can be moved by going to properties on the folder and the location tab. 

Default C drive is usually the best option. 

[Rudel_chw]

2 hours ago, TheBiggerBass said:

How can I move Saved Games\DCS to another drive ?

here is a guide:

 

 

[Cyborg71]

Hello,

IT newbee here.

Recently upgraded my pc. My internet is chronically slow, (we are talking 8 hrs for a single new map download) so I've followed the apparently simple process of copying the DCS install from the original SSD to the new pc SSD, to avoid 3 days of downloading.

Initially this quick transfer seemed to work fine. 

However, when looking for the ,"repair DCS" icon (which  I usually access through tabs in the win11 start menu) the usual DCS, dcs start, repair, update icons were missing.

I also found that DCS was not listed under installed Apps on Win11.

I'm currently running Win 11 unactivated, does that have an impact?

Why are the icons missing? I know that I will have to create a shortcut on the desktop to start the game, but why are the other icons missing. I imagined they'd auto-populate.

There's probably a simple solution. I will continue to search the forum, but if anyone can clear the mist for me, that would be great.

Brian

Edited May 18 by Cyborg71
Typo

[Art-J]

Such links and shortcuts are created only during installation process of DCS (or any Windows program for that matter) on a new computer, so If you manually copied your DCS instead, they simply can't and won't be there, as your Windows 11 doesn't even know DCS exists on this new computer.

I can think of two solutions now:

a) You can create your own desktop shortcuts for repair and update, or, if you don't know how to do it...;

b) ...You can properly install empty DCS without any modules and maps, just to get all the new links and shortcuts (it should be much smaller size install, you can afford a couple of hours for that), then copy your old big DCS on top of the small new one. Then run a repair just to be safe. 

Edited May 18 by Art-J

[Cyborg71]

34 minutes ago, Art-J said:

a) You can create your own desktop shortcuts for repair and update, or, if you don't know how to do it...;

b) ...You can properly install empty DCS without any modules and maps, just to get all the new links and shortcuts (it should be much smaller size install, you can afford a couple of hours for that), then copy your old big DCS on top of the small new one. Then run a repair just to be safe. 

I think I was close to 'a'. 

'b' sounds like a great idea. I will try that.

 

Thank you

[Czar66]

42 minutes ago, Art-J said:

b) ...You can properly install empty DCS without any modules and maps, just to get all the new links and shortcuts (it should be much smaller size install, you can afford a couple of hours for that), then copy your old big DCS on top of the small new one. Then run a repair just to be safe. 

4 minutes ago, Cyborg71 said:

'b' sounds like a great idea. I will try that.

You don't need to fully install DCS anew or finish the download on a new drive to do that.

Just start the download process -> cancel/exit the download -> copy the old DCS files from another driver over the new ones (overwrite everything) -> resume installation by booting up either the installation file you got from the DCS site or the new shortcuts it just created.

DCS is properly 'installed' as soon as the download begins.

I hope it helps.

[Cyborg71]

Such quick useful advice everyone. I'm off to give that a try now.

Thank you.

[Cyborg71]

Thank you.

I'm up and running in a fraction of the time it would normally take. All seems to be operating normally.

All the best.

Brian

 

 

[ZACHI]

Hello experts,

I'm trying to avoid moving the DCS folder to the new drive as he path is defined in other applications and not only in the desktop shortcut.

Does a symbolic link from the original folder to my new drive would have a noticeable performance penalty compared to moving the folder (both drives are SSD)?

Thanks!

Edited June 9 by ZACHI

[Esac_mirmidon]

In my experience, moving maps, not a single perfomance problem.

Dont know about the whole DCS, but i dont think so.

[Rudel_chw]

9 minutes ago, ZACHI said:

Does a symbolic link from the original folder to my new drive would have a noticeable performance penalty compared to moving the folder (both drives are SSD)?

 

No, symbolic links do not impose a performance penalty over moving the data itself, but for DCS I do recommend to employ hard links (MKLINK /J) rather than symbolic links.

[ZACHI]

@Esac_mirmidon @Rudel_chw thanks for the prompt response!

[taffy001]

Hi Guys,  need a bit of advice.

Old drive was getting full so could not add latest update.  So just moved my DCS install to another drive (2TB SSD), used copy / paste as advised.  Also moved the Saved games folder through windows process. And changed the shortcuts.

All worked and can access DCS (takes a fair bit of time to load though).  However is very laggy in VR and on triple screens (was not like this before).  Went back and ran it from the original folder and works well as always.  So checked again but still laggy on the moved install.

Any suggestions or ideas on what this may be ??

Thanks Taffy

 

[_Hoss]

Just move the game to the new drive, leave saved games on the C/: drive. That is if you just added a new drive and didn't trash the original. 

[CTB]

On 5/13/2025 at 10:27 AM, TheBiggerBass said:

How can I move Saved Games\DCS to another drive ?

Jumping on after a few months, so not sure if this is still needed (I have something else to comment so will try to be fast here before I forget).  You can move all of the user directory onto a different drive.  So then all of My documents, pictures, music and saved games (which are all system files) are located on this new drive under your user profile.

 

Essentially you set up a separate storage drive to hold all of your data and you can put your user profiles onto that.  You then have a smaller/faster drive for system/games/programmes.

I realise this is slightly old fashioned, you generally don't need to have separate drives/partitions for games/programmes etc, especially as capacities have increased over the years and now with SSD's costs have really come down.  But it is good to have all of your data on a separate drive that is backed up in case you lose your OS and/or system(/games/programmes) drive(s).  All of your hidden files/folders are located on this directory automatically, including App data and again this can all be backed up for reinstall or moving to a new machine/system.

 

I think with W10 onwards it has an option to do this but with W7 (and maybe XP can't quite remember) you had to do it during the time of install. On W7 you install in audit mode and setup the user profiles before going into OOBE (out of box experience). This is done by writing a short script to modify the registry to relocate the users profile directory(s) to the location you want.  The script is executed in unattend mode by sysprep tool and this takes you towards finishing the installation (eg before loading any other drivers/software you want to do in audit mode).

 

Its been a good few years since I did this so can't quite remember the workflow, but can provide instructions, batch file (or just text) if anyone wants to do it.  I remember I had a few other specifics that added complexity to my install, but they may not apply to anyone else.

 

 

 

 

Edited Saturday at 08:44 PM by CTB

[Rudel_chw]

1 hour ago, CTB said:

You can move all of the user directory onto a different drive.  So then all of My documents, pictures, music and saved games (which are all system files) are located on this new drive under your user profile.

 

You can also move just /Saved Games/ ... I use this procedure for it:

 

 

[CTB]

2 hours ago, Rudel_chw said:

You can also move just /Saved Games/ ... I use this procedure for it:

Yeah, saw your other post.  I was appending to it

Maybe a bit lazy with the quotations....