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UWP and Windows Store comedy of errors: The Ars Technica story
- Thread starter Paul
- Start date
For real? At one point I was thinking that having Xbox One games available on PC would make owning an Xbox One less desirable.
It turns out that, to me, Windows Store versions of Xbox games don't compete with the Xbox One at all, simply because of the difficulty and unreliability of using the Windows Store. I don't even consider them as a viable alternative.
Windows games available on Steam? Yes, absolutely.
Windows games available on the Windows Store? Nope. You can get in a scenario where you download a 50gb file and end up with a non-working game that's impossible to uninstall. That's insane.
It won't. I actually think it'll be delisted within 3 years.
My advice; get a Gamepass trial or a 1 month code (~$2) and try if FH4 works for you.
I am having fun. Having no problems here with KI, Sea of Thieves and FH3.
Along with GFWL and UWP games, theyve been righteously piss poor for a decade.
It's always a chore to find a game I own and reinstall it. The existing options to sort the list are cumbersome compared to other storefronts. Thankfully, that's my main gripe with it at the moment, but in the past I've had problems getting games I had already downloaded and installed to start again. I had to start another download and cancel it before they would work again.
I remember one of the Creator Updates broke my Forza Horizon 3. I spent hours trouble shooting it, but I ended up reinstalling the whole thing.
I can see that happening. This is why I only have play "Play Anywhere" titles on MS Store. If PC side of MS Store get shut down or replaced by something else, at least my games will still work fine on Xbox.
Do any of the windows store issues exist on Xbox? It's called windows store on Xbox too right? I've use the store on windows with no problems I've also had no issues with it on Xbox either. At least there is an alternative out there. If you wanted to play Spiderman and didn't have a ps4 there is no other option. You have another choice if you want F4 and can't get it on PC. If fact if you bought it on pc and can't get it to work couldn't you download it on Xbox for no additional charge? Do any other platforms give you that option? It's far from ideal but it could be tons worse. Besides it's hard to say Xbox has no exclusives when the alternative platform isn't viable.
Raising my hand to people who never got Halo Forge working, despite contacting CS and everything. Fuck the windows store
Yes. I think more than 90% of users only buy on it if it's an exclusive to this store, not counting gamepass and play anywhere.
UWP in general is a minefield, everything looks fine, until you step in the wrong place.
Or it could be that there are actually those of us who simply don't deal with the window Store all that often and are already invested in pc gaming for years through all the other software delivery venues. This is my first real experience with the windows Store and I am feeling the pains from some of these issues and I understand the normal hiccups with some PC games but this is stuff that is on a fundamental level that me, as the consumer, shouldn't have to deal with.
I'm one of those that jumped on the 14-day free trial for the game pass. That's me giving this service a chance and even if it's only $10 a month for just this one game I find it very hard to rationalize with putting my money into the service the way it works on PC.
I can't properly run HDR, I had to reset the store cache and Google how to do that, and I had to use another 70gb of my bandwidth cap for the launcher crashing. I wouldn't call that a stellar first impression.
It doesn't. The itch.io app just works and it was made by one person. MS really has no excuse.
I should add this to my list of things because I couldn't be bothered to waste more time to access a folder on my own private computer. Could you link me to an guide on how to grant access to the directory?
It's incredible that Microsoft was able to build an ecosystem for PC gaming that's even worse than GFWL. Even if the technical issues were solved, it's still unacceptable because of the encrypted game files, incompatibility with tools that PC gamers wanna use and the ridiculous prices of the games outside the US
I can only hope PC gamers vote against this shitshow with their wallets, just like they did when Microsoft tried to push GFWL. We really can't risk that Microsoft makes Windows Store exclusivity deals with 3rd party devs and publishers as well.
I can only hope PC gamers vote against this shitshow with their wallets, just like they did when Microsoft tried to push GFWL. We really can't risk that Microsoft makes Windows Store exclusivity deals with 3rd party devs and publishers as well.
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I did now and wow this experience sounds even tenfold worse than mine. I mean I thankfully can play FH4 now but with my issues and this article my dislike for the store went even higher.
I like the Windows Store. It gave me a new and deeper appreciation of the Steam Store: You see, a lot of the things Steam does effortlessly seem really easy at the first glance, like simply installing games as Win32 apps, and not fucking about with UWP, and then you compare it with the Windows Store and realize, no really, it just is that easy, fuck UWP.
I don't think anything could have taught me this well how much UWP and the entire infrastructure around it, sucks donkey balls. Thanks, MS for this valuable lesson.
I don't think anything could have taught me this well how much UWP and the entire infrastructure around it, sucks donkey balls. Thanks, MS for this valuable lesson.
Yep.
Just to put in perspective how much of a failure UWP and the Store are:
A UWP version of Office came out in January this year. A few days ago, MS said they will no longer be supporting that version.
I would chime in and say the experience has been utterly flawless for me, but I have only played 3 games (Gears 1, 4 and FH3).
Easier method, run this: https://github.com/jschicht/RunAsTI
It will invoke a Super Elevated CMD, navigate to the WindowsApps folder where the game is installed and write the following:
Code:
rmdir /s FOLDER-NAME-OF-GAMEBoth actually. The store isn't able to let people download their games and the account management sucks. And UWP doesn't play nice with win32 programs that people use.
The store having problems itself is bonkers. Microsoft shouldn't have problems creating a store. Everyone has a software store these days.
I wonder what the issues are and what decisions have led to this. Must be fascinating.
I wonder if the people with the most problems with the store did an 'upgrade' to Windows 10 from W7 and not a fresh install of W10? I've never known anyone personally have many problems with the W10 store except one friend who did the upgrade. From my experience, you never install an OS over top of another OS without formatting first.
Look up Take Ownership and make sure hidden files are shown. Or download windirstat, run it as admin and manually delete the folders.
Look up Take Ownership and make sure hidden files are shown. Or download windirstat, run it as admin and manually delete the folders.
If Phil Spencer says "We'll do better on PC, I promise" one more time I'm gonna scream. Every year there's a new interview or something where he repeats the same old thing from the previous year, and then a whole bunch of absolutely nothing proceeds to happen. Doesn't he ever get bored of this infinite loop?
This is pretty dangerous lol.
Could always just take ownership of the WindowsApps folder and do what needs to be done and then transfer ownership back. I get anxiety when impersonating system accounts.
I had similar issues two years ago when installing Forza 6: Apex. In the end, I was able to install it but that whole redownloading experience made avoid that store from that point.
It has improved every year tho.. it just doesn't improve enough. The store is fundamentally broken and they are fixing small things in a very slow speed.
I do think Spencer knows the store is shit. I do think he really wants to change it. I hope the current reorganization helps with that..
Does Phil actually have any direct oversight of the Windows Store?
I see the issues people have with the windows store. I'm curious how Microsofts competitors are handling games on windows. If Sony and Nintendo are offering better alternatives it will be more likely Microsoft will respond in ways pc gamers like. Competition can be a great motivator.
I don't understand it. They have some of the best engineers in the world, pull off some impressive achievements like BC but can't get the windows store to function consistently for more people. Thankfully I haven't had any issues but from all the reports and comments, it's clear that this is still an issue for many people.
Improving doesn't do much. It either works or it doesn't, and right now it doesn't. It's been that way for many years, and there's simply no excuse for that.
Of course he knows the store is terrible, he says that every year. That's my point, lol. He always says the same but nothing ever gets fixed.
No idea, I guess he just likes talking and repeating himself.
Some of these issues and fixes are just unacceptable.
My latest issue was not being able to delete the apps folder in one of my SSD's after installing it on a new PC. I'm assuming the only solution is to wipe the entire SSD
My latest issue was not being able to delete the apps folder in one of my SSD's after installing it on a new PC. I'm assuming the only solution is to wipe the entire SSD
I suppose that also works! I definitely understand your fear although after 22 years of messing with DOS and Windows it doesn't faze me anymore, plus I take monthly OS image backups so if I screw up *shrug* :P
Yeah I must have downloaded half a terrabyte over this weekend for FH4...
I did a clean install of Windows 10 on my current PC and still couldn't get Disney Infinity to download a long time ago. No, that store is crap for almost everyone, no matter their circumstances.
Having experienced every one of Sam's issues more than once ages ago cemented the fact that I'll never use that store again under any circumstances. I don't care if every person on Earth says they fixed it.
Speaking of, glad to hear Sam on Know How. Hope it becomes a full-time TWiT show as the other incarnations of KH have not been to my taste. TWiT desperately needs some real gaming content.
Speaking of, glad to hear Sam on Know How. Hope it becomes a full-time TWiT show as the other incarnations of KH have not been to my taste. TWiT desperately needs some real gaming content.
Perhaps that was the plan all along! Get those pesky PC people to pay for Xbox Live gold somehow!
Every single one was Win32. Even ReCore that has " Windows 10 Version 14393.98 or higher required" in the minimum requirements is Win32 and works on W7 lmao
Thanks! Know How is a staffer + guest series; Florence Ion was their last guest for 12 episodes, and my second episode goes live tomorrow. (I'll be doing Know How until the end of this year, once a week on Thursdays.) If you want to see more of my gaming savvy at TWiT, email them directly and tell them to give me all of the moneys. (Hey, it might work.)