Where to Install GSX Profiles: The Complete Location Guide

Ground Services X (GSX) is one of the most popular ground handling add-ons for Microsoft Flight Simulator and its predecessors. It simulates realistic airport ground operations — pushback, catering, fuselage services, and more. But for GSX to recognize a custom airport layout or ground crew behavior, profiles need to live in exactly the right place. Getting that location wrong is one of the most common reasons profiles silently fail to load.

What a GSX Profile Actually Is

A GSX profile is a configuration file that tells the add-on how to handle a specific airport. It defines things like jetway positions, parking stand assignments, vehicle paths, and service point locations tailored to a particular airport scenery package.

Because third-party airport scenery often moves gates or stands away from default coordinates, GSX profiles compensate for that — making services snap to the right spots instead of floating in mid-air or appearing on the wrong side of the aircraft.

Profiles come in two main forms:

• .ini files — the most common format, containing position and behavior data for a specific airport ICAO code
• .py (Python) files — used in older GSX versions or for more complex scripted behaviors

The Core Installation Path 🗂️

For GSX Pro (the current version, distributed through FSDT's installer or Simmarket), the default profile folder is:

C:Users[YourUsername]AppDataRoamingVirtualiGSXMicrosoft Flight Simulator 

This is the primary location where GSX looks for custom airport profiles at runtime. When you download a profile from sources like the FSDT forum, Flightsim.to, or AVSIM, this is almost always where it needs to go.

The AppData folder is hidden by default in Windows. To access it, type %AppData% directly into the Windows File Explorer address bar and press Enter — it will navigate there automatically.

Older Simulators: Different Paths

If you're running GSX on Prepar3D or FSX, the profile path is different:

The parent folder is always VirtualiGSX — only the subfolder name changes based on the simulator platform. This matters if you run multiple simulators on the same machine, because dropping an MSFS profile into a P3D folder (or vice versa) won't produce any error — it just won't work.

Why Location Precision Matters

GSX doesn't scan your entire drive for profiles. It reads only from its designated directory at load time. If a file is in the wrong subfolder, misnamed, or placed inside a nested folder it doesn't expect, GSX will simply use default behavior for that airport with no warning message.

This is why many users think a profile "isn't working" when the real issue is a path mismatch.

A few things that commonly cause this:

• Extracting a ZIP and missing a nested folder — the .ini file ends up inside an extra subfolder like Profile/EGLL.ini instead of directly in the GSX directory
• Placing files in the scenery add-on folder — profiles don't belong in the airport scenery's own folder; they always go in the Virtuali path
• Case-sensitive ICAO naming — while Windows itself isn't case-sensitive, some profile tools and validators are; keeping ICAO codes in uppercase (e.g., EGLL.ini, not egll.ini) matches the convention

The In-Sim Profile Editor Also Saves Here 🛠️

If you use GSX's built-in customization tools to manually place jetways, parking positions, or service points while in the simulator, those saved profiles are written to the same VirtualiGSX[Simulator] directory automatically. This means:

• Custom profiles you create yourself and profiles you download coexist in the same folder
• If you install a downloaded profile for an airport you've already customized, the new file will overwrite your custom work unless you back it up first
• Profile filenames correspond directly to airport ICAO codes — KJFK.ini covers Kennedy, EGLL.ini covers Heathrow, and so on

Variables That Affect Where You Should Look

The "right" location isn't always identical across every setup, and several factors shape the actual path on your system:

Windows username and drive configuration — if your Windows user profile or AppData folder has been relocated to a different drive (common on systems with a small SSD for Windows and a larger drive for sim content), the %AppData% shortcut still resolves correctly, but the physical path will be different.

GSX version — FSDT has updated its folder structure across major versions. Very early GSX releases used a different path entirely. If you're running a version from several years ago, the current documentation may not match your installation.

Simulator install type — Microsoft Store versions of MSFS can sometimes have sandboxed AppData paths that differ from Steam installations, though this has become less of an issue in recent updates.

Profile source — some scenery developers bundle a GSX profile inside their airport package and include an installer that drops it in the right place automatically. Others provide a raw file with instructions. And community profiles from forums sometimes assume you know the path already.

When Profiles Still Don't Load

If you've placed a profile in the correct folder and it still isn't being recognized, a few additional checks are worth running:

• Confirm the file extension is .ini and not .ini.txt (Windows hiding extensions can mask this)
• Check that GSX is updated — older versions may not read profiles created with newer editor features
• Verify the ICAO code in the filename matches the airport you're loading exactly
• Some profiles require a specific scenery package to be installed — they're tailored to one developer's layout and won't align correctly on default or a different third-party scenery

Whether a given profile works seamlessly or requires manual adjustment depends heavily on which scenery version you're using, how your simulator paths are configured, and whether your GSX installation is fully up to date. Those variables are specific to your setup — and they're what ultimately determine whether dropping a file in the right folder is all it takes, or whether there's more tuning ahead.