Forgive me for making a slight rant-thread but I'm almost at my wits end.
I always heard that the "Windows Store was a steaming pile of junk" but I myself never had too many problems with it, the only two being it not recognizing my secondary game HDD and having to download Forza Horizon 3 twice at release. Who knew that something as simple as logging out of your Windows Store Account and then back in later could cause massive problems? I mean it's a very basic functionality that Sony, Nintendo, Apple and Google get right, it's just logging out and logging in right, there's not much that can go south! Well that's wrong!
It all started yesterday when a friend who bought the Forza Horizon 4 Ultimate Edition was unable to get his Dualshock 4 working properly with the game. After two hours of calling and troubleshooting, DS4Windows and GloSC we finally found the solution, it was the Windows Game Bar that somehow always disrupted the inputs. After we disabled that he could play fine. I watch him play on stream and then he said too bad that he won't be able to play Saturday and Sunday because he will be away with his family. At this point I was thinking: "Hey would you mind if I play a bit with your account while you are away?" thinking I could get a headstart for Tuesday when I get my own copy.
We google a bit around trying to see if Microsoft has something like "Family Share" on Steam. Sure enough we find out that there's a "Family" option and he adds me as family member but then we realize the family thing is useless for multiple devices. At this point he said screw it and gives me his Microsoft Login data. I start the Windows Store, log out of my account, log into his, go to Library and click Install on Forza Horizon 4 Ultimate. Three hours and 64gb later FH4 is installed and I just wanted to launch it once to see if it's working. We look up what the restrictions are and read:
- One Microsoft account can be linked to up to 10 devices
- An application may not run twice on different devices
Okay he shuts down the game for a minute, I start it on my end still logged into his account and nothing. I see the splash-screen and the game closes immidiately. Knowing this behavior already I download a free app thinking this would fix the issue but it didn't. I then try to reset the FH4 App and reboot my PC. Now the game had a exclamation-mark in the start menu and Windows said the game cannot be started and has to be reinstalled. Fine I thought let's download the 64gb all over again!
While my friend still can play fine, fast forward the game still wouldn't launch on my end after redownloading although there is no error message this time, just a splash-screen crash. At this point I fear the worst and try something else. I log out of his store account and log back into mine, trying to launch my own copy of Forza Horizon 3 which I was still playing earlier this week. Sure enough FH3 also won't launch anymore with a splash-screen crash. I reboot my PC, reset the app, try a ton of fixes I find online, including:
- Signing in to Windows with a Microsoft Account
- Running wsreset.exe
- Relogging into the XBOX App
- Trying the XBOX Beta App
- Trying a Windows Powershell Command that disables dev-mode for apps
- Downloading a free app (I tried Asphalt 9 which works fine and connects to the XBOX Services just fine too)
- Making sure all Windows and XBOX Services are enabled
And as of this morning nothing, my own copy of Forza Horizon 3 simply won't launch anymore. Looking into the Windows Eventviewer the error that causes the game to not work is "A DCOM Server could not be launched: Error 5." Googling that shows a ton of different people with the same error, also with Sea of Thieves and Forza 7 but no definitive solution. Right now I'm redownloading Forza Horizon 3 and removed myself of my friends Family system hoping that might fix it. But yeah at this point I don't even care for playing my friends copy of FH4 I just fear that come Tuesday when I get my own copy I won't be able to play it either. And I'm not reinstalling Windows because it broke itself while handling basic functionality, logging out and in to different accounts.
So yeah now I know while people really don't like the Windows Store.
I always heard that the "Windows Store was a steaming pile of junk" but I myself never had too many problems with it, the only two being it not recognizing my secondary game HDD and having to download Forza Horizon 3 twice at release. Who knew that something as simple as logging out of your Windows Store Account and then back in later could cause massive problems? I mean it's a very basic functionality that Sony, Nintendo, Apple and Google get right, it's just logging out and logging in right, there's not much that can go south! Well that's wrong!
It all started yesterday when a friend who bought the Forza Horizon 4 Ultimate Edition was unable to get his Dualshock 4 working properly with the game. After two hours of calling and troubleshooting, DS4Windows and GloSC we finally found the solution, it was the Windows Game Bar that somehow always disrupted the inputs. After we disabled that he could play fine. I watch him play on stream and then he said too bad that he won't be able to play Saturday and Sunday because he will be away with his family. At this point I was thinking: "Hey would you mind if I play a bit with your account while you are away?" thinking I could get a headstart for Tuesday when I get my own copy.
We google a bit around trying to see if Microsoft has something like "Family Share" on Steam. Sure enough we find out that there's a "Family" option and he adds me as family member but then we realize the family thing is useless for multiple devices. At this point he said screw it and gives me his Microsoft Login data. I start the Windows Store, log out of my account, log into his, go to Library and click Install on Forza Horizon 4 Ultimate. Three hours and 64gb later FH4 is installed and I just wanted to launch it once to see if it's working. We look up what the restrictions are and read:
- One Microsoft account can be linked to up to 10 devices
- An application may not run twice on different devices
Okay he shuts down the game for a minute, I start it on my end still logged into his account and nothing. I see the splash-screen and the game closes immidiately. Knowing this behavior already I download a free app thinking this would fix the issue but it didn't. I then try to reset the FH4 App and reboot my PC. Now the game had a exclamation-mark in the start menu and Windows said the game cannot be started and has to be reinstalled. Fine I thought let's download the 64gb all over again!
While my friend still can play fine, fast forward the game still wouldn't launch on my end after redownloading although there is no error message this time, just a splash-screen crash. At this point I fear the worst and try something else. I log out of his store account and log back into mine, trying to launch my own copy of Forza Horizon 3 which I was still playing earlier this week. Sure enough FH3 also won't launch anymore with a splash-screen crash. I reboot my PC, reset the app, try a ton of fixes I find online, including:
- Signing in to Windows with a Microsoft Account
- Running wsreset.exe
- Relogging into the XBOX App
- Trying the XBOX Beta App
- Trying a Windows Powershell Command that disables dev-mode for apps
- Downloading a free app (I tried Asphalt 9 which works fine and connects to the XBOX Services just fine too)
- Making sure all Windows and XBOX Services are enabled
And as of this morning nothing, my own copy of Forza Horizon 3 simply won't launch anymore. Looking into the Windows Eventviewer the error that causes the game to not work is "A DCOM Server could not be launched: Error 5." Googling that shows a ton of different people with the same error, also with Sea of Thieves and Forza 7 but no definitive solution. Right now I'm redownloading Forza Horizon 3 and removed myself of my friends Family system hoping that might fix it. But yeah at this point I don't even care for playing my friends copy of FH4 I just fear that come Tuesday when I get my own copy I won't be able to play it either. And I'm not reinstalling Windows because it broke itself while handling basic functionality, logging out and in to different accounts.
So yeah now I know while people really don't like the Windows Store.
