How to install MSFS2020
Installing Microsoft Flight Simulator requires a Microsoft account or Xbox account and its password.
If you don't have an account yet, please prepare one in advance.
Get started with Microsoft account (Microsoft)
Account with Xbox (Microsoft)
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Contents
From purchasing to downloading MSFS
Once you have purchased and downloaded MSFS, a "Play" button will appear on the Steam app screen.
Click this.
Or double-click the game icon on your desktop.
The process from purchasing MSFS to downloading the game itself is roughly the same for all versions of MSFS. Please refer to the following pages.
Sign in
Once the game is installed, double-click the game icon to launch MSFS.
The game will start.
You will need to sign in to your Microsoft account or Xbox account here.
Click the "Sign in" button.
The sign-in screen will appear.
Enter your account. Enter your password on the next screen.
You will be asked for permission to access your information.
Click "Agree".
Next, set your Xbox gamer tag (pen name) and icon.
This will be displayed to other players as your name when playing online games.
Once entered, click "Let's get started".
Next, you will see a screen like this.
Click "Get Started" again.
Next, you will see the accessibility settings screen.
When you move the cursor to each item, an explanation will appear on the right side of the screen.
For starters, you can leave it at the initial value.
Click the "NEXT" button at the bottom right of the screen.
I will introduce some useful settings that you should make first.
Please note that there are two accessibility settings screens.
Scroll the screen above and you will see items like this.
The next screen is the software license confirmation screen.
Click the [ACCEPT] button.
Download game data
The huge game data download will finally begin from here.
Three buttons are lined up on the screen: "STANDARD CONTENT", "DELUXE UPGRADE", and "PREMIUM UPGRADE". These correspond to three editions of Microsoft Flight Simulator. Choose which to download.
"STANDARD CONTENT" is a must-download item.
If you have purchased the PREMIUM version, all buttons will be checked at the bottom right. You can also shorten the download time by unchecking "DELUXE UPGRADE" and "PREMIUM UPGRADE".
Change destination folder
The bottom of this screen shows the folder where the data will be saved. By default, the save destination is C drive (C:\Users\[user name]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator). Also, in the example in this image, an error message appears because there is insufficient space on the installation destination.
You can change the save destination folder name by clicking on it. Create a folder with a name such as "msfs2020" on a large-capacity disk and specify it there.
Minimum required capacity
The minimum required capacity for MSFS2024 is 50GB, but every time you fly a new area or a new aircraft, data is downloaded from the cloud. For a comfortable flight, you need a large cache and ample free content storage area. Ideally, install it on a disk with at least 250GB of free space.
The minimum required capacity for MSFS2020 is 150GB, but if you include free optional content, it can reach up to 300GB. Furthermore, if you install free content developed by users, it will consume about 500GB in no time. Install on a disk with sufficient capacity, preferably 1TB or more.
This time I decided to use an entire drive with a capacity of 1.5TB for MSFS.
If you specify a folder with sufficient free space, the "UPDATE" button will be enabled like this.
Click this button to start downloading the game data.
This is the screen while game data is being downloaded.
Leave this screen for several hours until the download is complete.
You can check the download status by starting Windows Resource Monitor.
Regarding the network, you can see that downloads are occurring at almost full speed.
However, the CPU usage is low, so you can do other work on your computer.
If you monitor the remaining capacity of the target drive in Explorer, you can check the specific downloaded capacity.
Please be careful not to shut down/sleep your computer or close the download screen while downloading.
About 7 hours after the download started, the screen finally changed.
Even in this state, the download continues in the background.
This screen is a selection of graphic drawing quality. You can choose from four levels: [LOW-END], [MEDIUM], [HIGH-END], and [ULTRA], and the later options allow you to enjoy higher-definition graphics. However, you will need a high-performance computer. Here, the recommended quality is selected based on your computer's specifications.
This setting can be changed later on the game settings screen: [OPTIONS]-[GENERAL OPTIONS]-[GRAPHICS]-[GLOBAL RENDERING QUALITY].
Once selected, click [NEXT].
Next, choose whether or not to use satellite photos to draw the scene.
If you select [SATELLITE DATA STREAMING], the game screen will be drawn while downloading satellite images from the internet. A more realistic scene is drawn, but there is a lot of network communication.
If you select [NO WORLD STREAMING], satellite images will not be downloaded. Select this if you want to play in an environment where the internet is slow.
This setting can be changed later on the game settings screen: [OPTIONS]-[GENERAL OPTIONS]-[DATA]-[BING DATA WORLD GRAPHICS] and [PHOTOGRAMMETRY].
Once selected, click [NEXT].
When you select [SATELLITE DATA STREAMING] on the screen above, a warning like this will be displayed.
If you use a service such as mobile data communication that limits the amount of data you can use per month, you may quickly reach that limit.
Be careful.
If there are no problems, click [NEXT].
Next, let's check the controller used for gameplay.
A list of controllers connected to your computer is displayed.
Devices displayed here will have default key assignments.
If you want to customize the key assignment, click [CUSTOMIZE].
This setting can be changed later on the game settings screen: [OPTIONS]-[CONTROLS OPTIONS].
If there are no problems, click [NEXT].
Attention: If more than one device of the same type is detected on this screen, the device may not work properly. (Game controller in this example) In such a case, delete all key assignments for devices that are not used for operation. Details will be explained later.
Next, let's set up computer assistance for things like maneuvering.
By default, all items are set to [EASY].
You can also switch to [MIDDLE-GROUND] or [TRUE TO LIFE] by clicking [<] or [>] on the left and right of [ALL ASSISTS] at the top of the screen.
Please change it as you like.
If you select [ALL ASSISTS], even beginners can easily operate a jet airliner.
This setting can be changed later on the game settings screen: [OPTIONS]-[ASSISTANCE OPTIONS].
After setting, click [DONE].
Next is the option to update the game data.
Click [INSTALL] to update to the latest data.
Then you will see a screen like this.
This time, it seems that the update has a total of 83GB.
Click [UPDATE].
Downloading of the update module will begin.
The 83GB download took about 4 hours.
Then it stopped during installation.
The program is running, but when I check the resource monitor, it shows no CPU or network usage.
As a workaround, close the game by clicking the [x] in the top right corner of the screen, press the "Stop" button in the Steam app, and then click the "Play" button in the Steam app again. The installation then resumed and proceeded to the next screen.
I finally arrived at the main screen of Microsoft Flight Simulator.
According to the Steam app display, the play time so far has been 17.9 hours.
But I have only downloaded it yet.
How to exit the game
To exit Microsoft Flight Simulator, click [QUIT TO DESKTOP] at the bottom left of the main screen or press the [ESC] key.
Then you will see a screen like this.
Click [YES] to exit.
How to launch the game
To launch a game installed from Steam, select the title from the "Library" screen of the Steam app and click the "Play" button.
Or double-click the game icon on your desktop.
Game won't start!?/It stalls!? How to force quit and restart
When starting MSFS, the screen may freeze and stall.
The most common occurrence is when the blue progress bar at the bottom of the screen reaches about the middle while data is being loaded (see image on the right).
It may also stall during the initial logo animations.
It takes about 5 minutes for MSFS to start up. If it doesn't start up after waiting 10 minutes, try forcibly closing MSFS and starting the game again.
If you think it has stalled, press [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[Delete] to open "Task Manager".
First, select "Performance" from the menu on the left side of the screen and check the access status of the CPU and the disk that stores MSFS itself and its data.
If there is almost no access to either, force quit MSFS.
Select [Processes] from the left menu of "Task Manager", right-click "FlightSimulator.exe", and select "End Task" to force quit it.
Then click on the MSFS icon and try restarting it.