New PC, backup and restore questions.

I'm about to embark on a new PC build and would appreciate some advice as how to go about backing up and restoring my DCS installation (about 125Gb at the moment). I have a spare 1Tb hard drive which I will use as a temporary location for the backup, along with my FSX, X-Plane 11 and Aerofly FS2 backups.

Am I correct in thinking that before I backup I should go into the individual aircraft, terrain and campaign folders and run the respective protect.exe files? I also note that in the root DCS\bin folder there is a DCS_protect.exe, should that too be run? I assume that once all that has been done it will be safe to copy the folder, along with the saved games folder to the temp HD?

When I exit the game before backing up does it matter whether the game is in online or offline mode?

If I were to uninstall the modules using the DCS Updater/Launcher would that run the respective protect.exe files?

It's the re-installation process that I'm not sure how to do so I would appreciate it if someone could walk me through that process.

Many thanks.

This is no magic, many have done it that way.

1. Get your DCS into "ONLINE" mode !!!

2. Start DCS -> Module Manager -> deactivate EACH module ( aircraft, terrain, mesh )(this will run the protect.exe in a much more user friendly way )

3. Copy the installation folder to your 1TB Backup drive

4. Copy your "Saved Games" from C:\users\YourName\Saved Games\... also to your 1TB drive ( you dont want to redo all controls, do you ? )

--->> NEW PC--->

1. move DCS install folder to where you want to have it.

2. Download SkateZilla DCS-Updater-Tool from DCS site: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=160053

3. Go to "Settings" in this tool and tie the install folder into it with "Folder Paths and Build Configuration"; it's almost intuitive to use, it's worth learning the tool

4. Run a REPAIR to make sure all needed MS tools are installed

5. ENJOY DCS by starting, repairing, cleaning and updating DCS through this tool. Very very handy if you have stable and beta branch installed.

If you do not use that tool it will still work, just you have no links to start DCS and you will have to make some shortcuts yourself, which is no big deal at all but you do not seem to be that kind of guy ( no offense ) that knows how this works.

You have to enter the keys again to unlock the modules, have your papers ready ;)

edit: controls::

you can load all controller files into your new install. You have to do it module per module and you have to choose "show all files" in the file explorer Pop-Up. In default you see none of your old files when you navigate into your backed up controller folder, change the shown files to "all files" and you will be happy again ;)

BitMaster.

Many thanks for this informative guide. I've read a few forum posts on this subject but none are as clear as this, a great help to inexperienced/casual users such as me, should be a sticky .

Thank-you.

I'm running into a strange problem with this. I've transferred DCS to my laptop via the tutorial here, and can run DCS without a problem.

However, whenever I run the clean function, it wants to delete all of the files for my modules, claiming they are extra files. If I let it, I lose all the modules and have to transfer them back again.

They are activated and playable in the new install.

It's a minor problem, but still has me wondering, why?

Edit: Also, I can't get a DCS icon on the desktop or start menu. I can manually create a shortcut from DCS in the /bin folder, but it doesn't have the nice icon, just the generic Windows one. I've run the repair several times...

Look into Acronis True Image Software...great for not only backing up game folders but also for cloning entire volumes and drives....transferring from HDD >> SSD and SSD >> SSD...I just recently did an over all integrity test of my systems physical drives and found that my while all my drives are healthy, my main OS drive was listed at 89%...it's a Kingston SSD but dated, so now I've ordered a new Samsung EVO SSD that uses a 2.5" PCIe adapter card and when my current system drive starts to reach it's end of life, I'll be able to switch over to the 500GB SSD using the Acronis software to a new bootable OS drive seamlessly