Gamepass PC is a ticking time bomb that results in permanently lost HDD/SSD space unless you nuke windows

[Lowkey20]

Microsoft is pretty much the king of wonky apps whether it's their inconsistent and poorly designed OS or their own apps. It does not surprise me at all.

Don't take me wrong, they do make a lot of good stuff (mostly on the developer side) but their end user facing stuff is at best inconvenient, at worst a pile of crap.

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This. As someone who is forced to use their entire suite of products at work (desktop and apps), I'm continually amazed at how awful the UX/UI is. I once wrote the head of IT at my job an essay about how awful Planner is and how his decision to force the company to use it over Trello was a disaster. It's almost as if the product team at MS doesn't actually use the products they develop. A lot of problems that are clearly evident by just examining basic user flows are either ignored or missed. I don't use GamePass on the PC but I'm not surprised by any of this.

 

[Skyebaron]

A quick fix I found was to load up 7zip with admin privileges and use that to delete whatever Microsoft Store app folders you need to delete. For some reason, that just works!

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What in the fuck. This actually works.

 

[Dec]

Had issues in the past but nothing for like a year. I use gamepass a lot, as well.

 

[Something Creative]

That poll is a bit broken? Indicates 50% of responders experienced issues, but it allows people to select multiple options?

Either way it's pretty clear this is a massive failure by MS.

 

[LuckyHit]

Holy crap that worked! I was able to see the folder and file with WinRar, but I couldn't delete the actual file. This let me do it...

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Stupid problems call for stupid solutions! Glad I could help.

 

[flyinj]

Unfortunately after deleting the 70 gig Gears 5 file I am still not able to reinstall it.

However, at least I have the space back. I'll just never be able to play Gears 5 again.

That really sucks because the DLC is coming out next week and I have Gamepass Ultimate.

 

[Akronis]

A quick fix I found was to load up 7zip with admin privileges and use that to delete whatever Microsoft Store app folders you need to delete. For some reason, that just works!

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this is pretty fucking wacky and extremely useful, thank you!

 

[Stalker]

Ok, well I located a 70 gig file in my WindowsApps MSIXVC folder which is the Gears 5 installed data.

I rebooted into safe mode, and it still wouldn't let me delete it, saying I needed admin access to do so.

Any other advice on how to get rid of this file without altering permissions on the WindowsApps folder?

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You got told this by Akronis

 

[flyinj]

So I'm basically at a place now where I can actually get the space back, but the following games will not reinstall:

Wasteland 3
Gears 5
Crusader Kings 3
Lonely Mountain Downhill
Yakuza Kiwami 2


All games that I want to play, and I have paid to access through Gamepass.

And it seems every week another game randomly decides to remove itself from the Xbox app and become completely unusable and uninstallable.

This is still complete bullshit.

 

[Stalker]

So I'm basically at a place now where I can actually get the space back, but the following games will not reinstall:

Wasteland 3
Gears 5
Crusader Kings 3
Lonely Mountain Downhill
Yakuza Kiwami 2


All games that I want to play, and I have paid to access through Gamepass.

And it seems every week another game randomly decides to remove itself from the Xbox app and become completely unusable and uninstallable.

This is still complete bullshit.

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Why can't you install them?

 

[LuckyHit]

So I'm basically at a place now where I can actually get the space back, but the following games will not reinstall:

Wasteland 3
Gears 5
Crusader Kings 3
Lonely Mountain Downhill
Yakuza Kiwami 2


All games that I want to play, and I have paid to access through Gamepass.

This is still complete bullshit.

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Silly question, but have you tried restarting your computer? If that doesn't solve it then try
Start menu > Settings > Update and Security > Troubleshoot > Additional Troubleshooters > Windows Store Apps
The Windows Store Apps troubleshooter sometimes solves problems for me

 

[flyinj]

Silly question, but have you tried restarting your computer? If that doesn't solve it then try
Start menu > Settings > Update and Security > Troubleshoot > Additional Troubleshooters > Windows Store Apps
The Windows Store Apps troubleshooter sometimes solves problems for me

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You have no idea how many things I've tried. At least 40 different "fixes". Yes, I've tried that.

 

[Pocky4Th3Win]

Biggest problem with the App is that its actually just a front end for the Windows Store and that's a fucking terrible app. Halo for the longest time wouldn't install for no reason. Just a random error, I got Doom Eternal installed but Battlemode is the only thing I can play. It wont let me play campaign and when I check the install its the full size but the windows store says otherwise.

MS really needs to full redesign the experience for Game Pass on Windows because its terrible and just a poorly made application when you compare it to other digital game apps like Steam, GOG, Epic Games and even fucking origin.

BTW if you have problems the way to fix it is the repair the Windows Store through powershell.

 

[Tallshortman]

You're asking for an impossible standard of proof, we're never gonna get that data. Only Microsoft has the numbers and they aren't gonna send out a press release telling everyone how many customers they have annoyed with their poor service.

• Just look at the state of the subreddit though - The number one stickied thread on the pc game pass subreddit is about installation issues. Roughly 50% of the threads are about someone having issues downloading or installing a game. Compare this to the Epic Games Store or Steam subreddit where I can't see a single thread about technical issues in the first page.
• Look at the review ratings for all the games on the store, it's absolutely saturated with 1-star reviews from people commenting about technical issues. These reviews get purged constantly for some reason, but the amount of 1-star reviews overwhelms the normal reviews. This doesn't happen on any other storefront.
• Look at the amount of threads generated on this forum due to installation issues
• Look at the release threads on this forum for new gamepass games. Every one of these threads that I have participated in has had multiple people talking about technical issues, usually related to installation.

Does this seem like a healthy storefront to you, or one that just has a small-scale problem?

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Yep anyone saying you need further statistical analysis is burying their head in the sand. Plenty of non-anecdotal evidence to show the state of the xbox app and gamepass on PC is not okay.

Biggest problem with the App is that its actually just a front end for the Windows Store and that's a fucking terrible app. Halo for the longest time wouldn't install for no reason. Just a random error, I got Doom Eternal installed but Battlemode is the only thing I can play. It wont let me play campaign and when I check the install its the full size but the windows store says otherwise.

MS really needs to full redesign the experience for Game Pass on Windows because its terrible and just a poorly made application when you compare it to other digital game apps like Steam, GOG, Epic Games and even fucking origin.

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Exactly, the windows store has been awful for full on PC games. Even though the games aren't UWP the files still locked down for some reason and takes research to actually get into the install folders.

 

[flyinj]

Why can't you install them?

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I get error code 0x80073CF9 on all of them when I try to install from the Xbox app or Windows Store

 

[Stalker]

I get error code 0x87E00017 on all of them when I try to install from the Xbox app or Windows Store

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This is going to be kind of out their but check your HDD and RAM. This error is a problem with downloading and I only ran into it when my ram was failing

 

[flyinj]

This is going to be kind of out their but check your HDD and RAM. This error is a problem with downloading and I only ran into it when my ram was failing

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RAM and HDD are fine. I've installed dozens of Steam, Epic and Gamepass games since I started getting this error with zero issues.

This error only happens on certain Gamepass games (and that number is growing)

If it was a RAM or HDD issue I would definitely be having issues with other storefronts.

 

[Stalker]

RAM and HDD are fine. I've installed dozens of Steam, Epic and Gamepass games since I started getting this error in some Gamepass games with zero issues.

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The issue only presented on windows games for me, something about the delivery process.

 

[flyinj]

The issue only presented on windows games for me, something about the delivery process.

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Ok, I'll bite. How do I check my RAM to see if it is failing?

 

[Stalker]

Ok, I'll bite. How do I check my RAM to see if it is failing?

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https://www.memtest86.com/

Install on a USB and boot into it

 

[Rosol]

This is ridiculous why MS has to go the extra mile on securing themselves in the special folder handling. I've been through a lot of what you have even spending hours on scouring tech support forums, using 3rd party programs you name it, I managed to delete 'some' of it but parts still remain no matter what I try - I eventually threw in the towel, and just let the space go because it was only a few GB left that I couldn't delete. Honestly I would not purchase any game on their platform for this reason, regardless of whatever value or discount they offer.

 

[Lizard Wizard]

I've had all these same experience with uninstalling games and the windows store. I followed some tutorial to change the folder persimmons so I could delete the files. Did not know about using Safe Mode.

What really frustrated me was when Microsoft Flight refused to update. Had to delete and reinstall the entire game. Even though a lot of the assets are stored outside of the Windows Store walled garden, the game would not recognize them and tried to download ~100GB of files I already had. Have not played since.

I'm pretty sure this is an issue of the Microsoft Store app and not the PC Game Pass app. (I think the Game Pass app is pretty good compared to the old Xbox app. Game Bar has gotten some nice updates as well.) I've had these issues with the Microsoft Store since it launched with Windows 8. You can search all you want for solutions to the problem, I know I have. The only thing that ever worked for me is a clean install. I did it once using Settings > Update and Security > Recovery > Reset this PC. It worked fast and kept all my files, just had to reinstall programs. Make sure you have a backup, just in case. I know is sucks but it's the only solution I know of.

My hope is since a lot of people are actually using the Windows Store on the Desktop now with Game Pass games, Microsoft will finally try to fix the issue. But I'm afraid that the issues may necessitate a complete rewrite of the store.

 

[Lord Azrael]

I only started using Game Pass on PC recently so I haven't encountered any of these issues yet, but this is exactly why I set the installation location to my backup hard drive. So that I can reformat it if necessary

 

[dallow_bg]

This is why I'm scared to install Flight Simulator.

 

[toastybanana]

So I'm basically at a place now where I can actually get the space back, but the following games will not reinstall:

Wasteland 3
Gears 5
Crusader Kings 3
Lonely Mountain Downhill
Yakuza Kiwami 2


All games that I want to play, and I have paid to access through Gamepass.

And it seems every week another game randomly decides to remove itself from the Xbox app and become completely unusable and uninstallable.

This is still complete bullshit.

Click to shrink...

I have a similar issue after moving games between drives. Something messed up and after "uninstalling" them and now I can never download No Man's Sky or Forza Horizon 4 without it throwing an error. Every other game is fine but some registry/hidden windowsapp stuff is pointing to these 2 titles specifically and saying nope. Again, I did everything that pops up in a google search from taking ownership to resetwueng and more.

 

[hersheyfan]

Hmmm... this thread has got me thinking about getting a third cheap 2TB HDD exclusively for Game Pass games, for an easy nuke whenever needed. Never thought about it before, but it sounds like a great idea!

I'll probably get to it next year though, as my 2020 PC hardware bill is already fucking astronomical.

 

[Lizard Wizard]

Hmmm... this thread has got me thinking about getting a third cheap 2TB HDD exclusively for Game Pass games, for an easy nuke whenever needed. Never thought about it before, but it sounds like a great idea!

I'll probably get to it next year though, as my 2020 PC hardware bill is already fucking astronomical.

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I just got a second SSD to do exactly that. Will be nice to finally get my game installs off this old mechanical drive.

 

[DestroyerOfWorlds]

You're asking for an impossible standard of proof, we're never gonna get that data. Only Microsoft has the numbers and they aren't gonna send out a press release telling everyone how many customers they have annoyed with their poor service.

• Just look at the state of the subreddit though - The number one stickied thread on the pc game pass subreddit is about installation issues. Roughly 50% of the threads are about someone having issues downloading or installing a game. Compare this to the Epic Games Store or Steam subreddit where I can't see a single thread about technical issues in the first page.
• Look at the review ratings for all the games on the store, it's absolutely saturated with 1-star reviews from people commenting about technical issues. These reviews get purged constantly for some reason, but the amount of 1-star reviews overwhelms the normal reviews. This doesn't happen on any other storefront.
• Look at the amount of threads generated on this forum due to installation issues
• Look at the release threads on this forum for new gamepass games. Every one of these threads that I have participated in has had multiple people talking about technical issues, usually related to installation.

Does this seem like a healthy storefront to you, or one that just has a small-scale problem?

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I don't doubt that the incident rate is higher than with other stores, but that still says nothing about what percentage of real world users actually run into problems. I recognize that probably only MS would have access to enough data to know that.

Just because you don't have access to the data doesn't mean you can make unsubstantiated claims about how many people are affected.

These small data points are not an acceptable replacement for statistically significant data.

 

[DestroyerOfWorlds]

So I'm basically at a place now where I can actually get the space back, but the following games will not reinstall:

Wasteland 3
Gears 5
Crusader Kings 3
Lonely Mountain Downhill
Yakuza Kiwami 2


All games that I want to play, and I have paid to access through Gamepass.

And it seems every week another game randomly decides to remove itself from the Xbox app and become completely unusable and uninstallable.

This is still complete bullshit.

Click to shrink...

Have you noticed whether the games disappearing coincide with days that patches come out for those games?

 

[flyinj]

Have you noticed whether the games disappearing coincide with days that patches come out for those games?

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Yes, it is pretty much exactly what happens. The patch releases, the Xbox app/Store try to autoupdate it, the update fails because of some unknown reason, the app disappears from my Xbox app game list, and I can then no longer play it, uninstall it or reinstall it. It becomes completely inaccessible.

I was able to get several Gears 5 updates in the past, however. I don't know when it got an update that broke it. I just realized it wasn't in my list when I tried to play it last week. I think I played it two months ago before that, and it had received patches with no issues.

However, many other Gamepass games update fine. For instance, I just got a Flight Simulator update and it downloaded without issue.

 

[whatsarobot]

PC gaming should be the best... in theory. But one story like this has me just saving for an Xbox instead.

That's a stage of life thing for sure. I'm sure many others find it a worthwhile trade off for the detail management.

 

[DestroyerOfWorlds]

Yes, it is pretty much exactly what happens. The patch releases, the Xbox app/Store try to autoupdate it, the update fails because of some unknown reason, the app disappears from my Xbox app game list, and I can then no longer play it, uninstall it or reinstall it. It becomes completely inaccessible.

However, many other Gamepass games update fine. For instance, I just got a Flight Simulator update and it downloaded without issue.

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That makes sense. Everything online seems to point to errors during update installation.

Common sources of the problem are network issues like DNS or firewall, storage or RAM problems, or anti-virus and other types of software interfering with the install.

Hard to pin down what it is for a given person. Sucky position to be in. I hope you can figure it out.

 

[yogurt]

PC gaming should be the best... in theory. But one story like this has me just saving for an Xbox instead.

That's a stage of life thing for sure. I'm sure many others find it a worthwhile trade off for the detail management.

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For whatever it's worth Steam, or hell, even the Epic Games Store have none of these issues. This is pretty exceptional though.

 

[strata]

The problem is the shitty app distribution backend behind Windows Store. It was rubbish on day 1 and I don't understand how it's still so bad 5 years later. It's not a hard problem to solve.

My theory is that some really poor choices were made in the initial design phase and they've had to work around them ever since.

 

[A Strong Latte]

Imagine if microsoft went with their plan and Windows apps were windows store only. It would be a fucking shitshow.

 

[DaCocoBrova]

The app isn't that bad, it just ignores some essential best practice with respect to data management. To their credit, they have added controller support, and an update icon that allows you to update content in-app.

 

[Deleted member 12317]

This is why I'm scared to install Flight Simulator.

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Flight Simulator is like 4 to 5 GB from the Store, then it downloads 100+ GB where you want, and if you want to install it on another PC, you can just install the 4-5 GB from the Store and copy the other 100+ GB folder with the actual game data.
You can even store that data and reinstall the game and reuse the data late (assuming it won't need to be updated, but it's the game that update it, not the Store).

The way this game works is quite different from other Windows Store games.

The only issue I had with the WindowsApps folders was when my Windows SSD crashed and had to reinstall on another one, I had WindowsApps folder on every drives and Windows would not install in nor could not delete those.
I had to use a bootable Linux USB drive to delete every WindowsApps folder from each other drives, then it could download games.

 

[dallow_bg]

Flight Simulator is like 4 to 5 GB from the Store, then it downloads 100+ GB where you want, and if you want to install it on another PC, you can just install the 4-5 GB from the Store and copy the other 100+ GB folder with the actual game data.
You can even store that data and reinstall the game and reuse the data late (assuming it won't need to be updated, but it's the game that update it, not the Store).

The way this game works is quite different from other Windows Store games.

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Oh ok, that's good to know. Will finally play it this weekend.

 

[Mupod]

lol, I had most of the issues in the poll with PSO2 alone. Gears 5 gave me a lot of trouble too. There's probably some unaccounted-for space on my drive but I'm not ready for nuclear windows wipe yet (though I probably should).

 

[Deleted member 12317]

Oh ok, that's good to know. Will finally play it this weekend.

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At first it was 4 GB I think, and 92 GB for its dedicated Packages folder that you can put where you want, now I don't know what size the initial Store install is but it may not be way bigger, but the Packages Folder is now 111 GB with every World Updates installed (Japan and USA).

 

[Taco_Human]

I haven't downloaded any large size games yet from Gamepass. All the games around or under 5GB been working fine for me

 

[Sblargh]

I never had trouble uninstalling games, but reformatting the SSD was a nightmare because windows just refused to let me delete some folders until I googled my way out of it and messes with permissions and fuck Microsoft let me at least pretend my PC is not actually private property of your corporation.

 

[Deleted member 2752]

The app isn't that bad, it just ignores some essential best practice with respect to data management. To their credit, they have added controller support, and an update icon that allows you to update content in-app.

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Data management is basically the main thing it's supposed to do lol

 

[Jawmuncher]

is Valhalla still messed up on pc?

 

[Deleted member 27751]

My only issue I've experienced over the now year of using it is that when re-installing Windows 10 you completely lose your game library with no backup/reinstall from existing files possible. It is absurd that Microsoft has not been able to implement a location function for existing files and match the licence up to the game to verify. Hell it should just be a launcher checking your Game Pass status and allowing you to play if you have a sub.

I've just bought the Aorus 1TB M.2 that has PS5 level speeds, but I'm putting off in re-installing simply because of the 14 games I already have downloaded across my SSD's/M.2's that would be wiped because of such an action. Even keeping files in a re-install won't work, as I want to replace master M.2 with the new Aorus drive thus changing C drive.

is Valhalla still messed up on pc?

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Valhall has nothing to do with Game Pass, but no it is not as bad now.

 

[Lord Azrael]

Valhall has nothing to do with Game Pass, but no it is not as bad now.

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I assume they're referring to VA-11 Hall-A, which just came to Game Pass last week and crashes when you select new game. Dev is aware and working on a fix

 

[Pikelet]

I don't doubt that the incident rate is higher than with other stores, but that still says nothing about what percentage of real world users actually run into problems. I recognize that probably only MS would have access to enough data to know that.

Just because you don't have access to the data doesn't mean you can make unsubstantiated claims about how many people are affected.

These small data points are not an acceptable replacement for statistically significant data.

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These issues are brought up in podcasts that i listen to, it dominates discussion about the platform on any forum or subreddit that relates to it, it has happened to friends of mine, and it has happened to me on multiple computers. Even in this very thread (granted it has an obvious selection bias) we have >50% of users reporting one issue or another.

We don't need a peer-reviewed study with n>5000 and p<0.05 for us to know the blatantly obvious.

By any reasonable standard of evidence it is clear that this is a huge problem that affects loads of users.

This is a paid service that has frequent, hard-drive ruining, showstopper bugs that wouldn't pass cert on any other closed garden platform that you could care to name.

 

[A Strong Latte]

Getting PSO2 running on this thing was a nightmare. never looked back after the tweaker, and double never looked back after steam.

I haven't been able to get Halo MCC working for more than one launch at a time, and all my game pass games including stuff like Slay The Spire wouldn't for for a brief period until I nuked the xbox app.

I don't doubt that the incident rate is higher than with other stores, but that still says nothing about what percentage of real world users actually run into problems. I recognize that probably only MS would have access to enough data to know that.

Just because you don't have access to the data doesn't mean you can make unsubstantiated claims about how many people are affected.

These small data points are not an acceptable replacement for statistically significant data.

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I don't normally complain about technical issues, but the game pass/windows store is insanely bad.

 

[GalvoAg]

Halo MCC was the only one that did it to me, shit would not play until I reinstalled the app and downloaded the game again. For sure the worst launcher out of them all.

 

[ChippyTurtle]

PSO2 wouldn't delete the actual space off my computer after uninstall. Thank God for 7zip. I wonder if it's a firewall blocking the MS store. Uninstall all your VPN, antivirus and see if it works then.