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

Has the Xbox App / Windows Store done any of this to you:

  • Deleted a game but the space never freed up

    Votes: 796 30.9%

  • Unable to uninstall a game at all

    Votes: 519 20.1%

  • Unable to install a game at all

    Votes: 566 22.0%

  • Had a game installed, but later it became unplayable and you can't reinstall

    Votes: 518 20.1%

  • Other

    Votes: 284 11.0%

  • Never had an issue with the Xbox App or Windows Store

    Votes: 1,227 47.6%
  • Total voters
    2,576
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Era of not Yakuza

Era of not Yakuza

Banned
Dec 4, 2017
11,483
Brazil
FUCKKKKK
Irrotational said:
flyinj - sorry for tagging you in this thread but a friend had a related (but different) problem with games in the xbox app/MS store. He found this powershell command that completely reset the windows store and fixed his problem. I know you've tried a LOT of different solutions with MS already so i wanted to check if you had already tried this one?

It is the powershell command listed under method 2 in the first answer:-

answers.microsoft.com

How to completely reset all of Windows Store and data

Is it possible to completely delete all data files you have on your account of the Microsoft Store. I have trouble downloading a game because its possible the old files is still on there but when I
answers.microsoft.com

His specific problem:-

  • Installed and could play The Ascent
  • Did nothing
  • Could no longer launch the ascent and clicking on it always took him to the MS store to install" game services" even though that was installed and up to date
  • Tried several resets and other fixes - nothing worked
  • uninstalled the game and couldn't re-install - some ghost files or registry entry seemed to be blocking the store from launching the download
  • Ran the powershell script. MS store cleared itself and automatically started downloading The Ascent without problem
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I restarted my PC on safe mode to uninstall some programs and now I can't login, it says that "pin is not available"
I have no idea of what to do
 
Thrill_house

Thrill_house

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,244
I can't believe this is still a problem. Wish king Spencer would get off his fucking ass and get this sorted. If your shit doesn't work or you are too fucking incompetent to fix it then shut this shit down.
 
Era of not Yakuza

Era of not Yakuza

Banned
Dec 4, 2017
11,483
Brazil
CyX said:
The Script shouldn't kill your system.. what did you do in SafeMode?
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It didn't
I can't login because Windows won't allow me to use my pin and it does not give me any other option

And I can't use the recovery menu because Windows wants my bitlocker recovery password and I realized windows did not save it on my account
 
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Timu

Timu

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,984
This thread is still going...how has Microsoft not fixed or said anything about this yet?
 
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flyinj

flyinj

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,478
As a reminder-

I have been updating the OP a lot over they past year with all information and tried fixes.... as well as warnings about doing certain things like using alternate methods to access the WinApps folder to delete stuff inside it. I definitely do not recommend doing this as it can potentially make your entire windows install unstable (as we see happening above)
 
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flyinj

flyinj

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,478
phant0m said:
It's dead and being completely overhauled for Win11
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As far as everyone who is using Windows 11 can tell, nothing at all has changed in the backend of how Windows handles installed apps and games from the store. It still uses the exact same locked directory and gibberish directory names inside. This most likely means nothing about the backend has changed at all and this bug is most likely still present in Windows 11.

The only thing that changed in Windows 11 is the UI of the store. It looks like nothing else has changed as far as anything else.
 
S1lentSymph0ny

S1lentSymph0ny

Member
Oct 27, 2017
828
flyinj said:
As far as everyone who is using Windows 11 can tell, nothing at all has changed in the backend of how Windows handles installed apps and games from the store. It still uses the exact same locked directory and gibberish directory names inside. This most likely means nothing about the backend has changed at all and this bug is most likely still present in Windows 11.

The only thing that changed in Windows 11 is the UI of the store. It looks like nothing else has changed as far as anything else.
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The biggest change that is supposed to happen to the store is allowing win32 apps instead of ONLY UWP apps. The majority of your issues seem to be tied to their UWP app system. I highly doubt any games that already on game pass will change but once win32 apps are allowed in the store then newly released games could use win32 and you wouldn't have the same issues for those games.

Note that this hasn't happened yet and Windows 11 is still in BETA. "Everyone who is using Windows 11" is running a beta, not a final build.
 

Deleted member 17184

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flyinj said:
As far as everyone who is using Windows 11 can tell, nothing at all has changed in the backend of how Windows handles installed apps and games from the store. It still uses the exact same locked directory and gibberish directory names inside. This most likely means nothing about the backend has changed at all and this bug is most likely still present in Windows 11.

The only thing that changed in Windows 11 is the UI of the store. It looks like nothing else has changed as far as anything else.
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S1lentSymph0ny said:
The biggest change that is supposed to happen to the store is allowing win32 apps instead of ONLY UWP apps. The majority of your issues seem to be tied to their UWP app system. I highly doubt any games that already on game pass will change but once win32 apps are allowed in the store then newly released games could use win32 and you wouldn't have the same issues for those games.

Note that this hasn't happened yet and Windows 11 is still in BETA. "Everyone who is using Windows 11" is running a beta, not a final build.
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Just to correct a few things about both of your posts:

- The backend has changed. The folder and its structure have not. These are two different things. We still don't know if you can reliably install/uninstall games, but you can't modify them unless they're in the Modifiable WindowsApps folder.

- The Microsoft Store supports native Win32 games (without a wrapper) since 2019. Every game since then has been Win32. There's a misconception that the issues reported in this thread are related to UWP. That's not true. They happen because of some bizarre issue in how the Microsoft Store handles installs, and how the WindowsApps folder is heavily restricted. Even if you have Win32, Java, .NET, or whatever, they're still installed in a protected folder, unless the devs target Modifiable WindowsApps. By the way, that's the biggest difference in Windows 11: every app (not just games) can be Win32, but also Java, etc. So now we can see browsers, but also something like Minecraft Java Edition if Microsoft wishes to do so.
 
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flyinj

flyinj

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,478
S1lentSymph0ny said:
The biggest change that is supposed to happen to the store is allowing win32 apps instead of ONLY UWP apps. The majority of your issues seem to be tied to their UWP app system. I highly doubt any games that already on game pass will change but once win32 apps are allowed in the store then newly released games could use win32 and you wouldn't have the same issues for those games.

Note that this hasn't happened yet and Windows 11 is still in BETA. "Everyone who is using Windows 11" is running a beta, not a final build.
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From what I remember, aren't developers allowed to put up Win32 apps right now on the windows store?

I believe this issue is that even in Windows 11 Gamepass games must use the weird packaging and deployment that the current ones use for them to work correctly on the service. I haven't read anything about that aspect changing.
 
EeK9X

EeK9X

Member
Jan 31, 2019
1,150
Khrn said:
Just to correct a few things about both of your posts:

- The backend has changed. The folder and its structure have not. These are two different things. We still don't know if you can reliably install/uninstall games, but you can't modify them unless they're in the Modifiable WindowsApps folder.

- The Microsoft Store supports native Win32 games (without a wrapper) since 2019. Every game since then has been Win32. There's a misconception that the issues reported in this thread are related to UWP. That's not true. They happen because of some bizarre issue in how the Microsoft Store handles installs, and how the WindowsApps folder is heavily restricted. Even if you have Win32, Java, .NET, or whatever, they're still installed in a protected folder, unless the devs target Modifiable WindowsApps. By the way, that's the biggest difference in Windows 11: every app (not just games) can be Win32, but also Java, etc. So now we can see browsers, but also something like Minecraft Java Edition if Microsoft wishes to do so.
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You're absolutely right. Another big issue with the Microsoft Store is their certification process, which is slower/more difficult than that of other platforms (and even Xbox consoles). That's why the vast majority of games receive updates much later on the Games for Windows Marketpl-- I mean, the Microsoft Store.

There's also the case of games that are released there lacking features, something that's been a thing since 2016, with Rise of the Tomb Raider and Quantum Break (both missing basic settings). The Ascent is the most recent example of a "Microsoft exclusive" that doesn't have feature parity with the Steam version (RT is broken, no DLSS, etc.).

I really, really wish Microsoft would make Game Pass available on Steam, just like EA did with their EA Play subscription service (but launching all games from Steam itself, instead - EA Play still relies on Origin for some titles).
 

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EeK9X said:
You're absolutely right. Another big issue with the Microsoft Store is their certification process, which is slower/more difficult than that of other platforms (and even Xbox consoles). That's why the vast majority of games receive updates much later on the Games for Windows Marketpl-- I mean, the Microsoft Store.

There's also the case of games that are released there lacking features, something that's been a thing since 2016, with Rise of the Tomb Raider and Quantum Break (both missing basic settings). The Ascent is the most recent example of a "Microsoft exclusive" that doesn't have feature parity with the Steam version (RT is broken, no DLSS, etc.).

I really, really wish Microsoft would make Game Pass available on Steam, just like EA did with their EA Play subscription service (but launching all games from Steam itself, instead - EA Play still relies on Origin for some titles).
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And this is why I hope people understand UWP/Win32 aren't the issue. Because it actually makes Microsoft look worse. If this was the case, it'd be solved already. It's not.
 
Majik13

Majik13

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,847
so if I am getting Gamepass for PC only, is it still too risky? My main C drive is constantly filling up and Im always needing to delete and back things up off of it to save space. I do have most of my C drive being backedup to an internal HDD. But have never tried to use the backup to restore yet or how that process works. I can install these games to a separate slower SSDS right? Would that be safer or recommended in case I need to nuke that other SSD drive? Im only using that 2nd SSD for a cold storage of backeduped games. Any other tips or recommendations? Or should I just not bother yet?
 
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aarstar

Member
Oct 29, 2017
679
Got lucky with this I guess. I just uninstalled some gamepass games on my PC and thankfully recovered the disk space.
 

bes.gen

Member
Nov 24, 2017
4,152
thinking of all the average people that can't even tell when this is happening to them. and don't know where their disc space went.
thats probably one of the main reasons the issue never blew up
 
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EeK9X

EeK9X

Member
Jan 31, 2019
1,150
Khrn said:
And this is why I hope people understand UWP/Win32 aren't the issue. Because it actually makes Microsoft look worse. If this was the case, it'd be solved already. It's not.
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Yeah, I wish their wrapper was the only issue. Their byzantine folder structure and integration with Windows is the main culprit.

When the Microsoft Store is literally running at all times on W10 and you can't actually kill the process (no way of stopping all related services without breaking something in the OS), you know there's something very, very wrong.

But you still get people saying "it's just another launcher" and praising the damn thing, so, there's little hope for improvement.
 
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flyinj

flyinj

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Oct 25, 2017
11,478
bes.gen said:
thinking of all the average people that can't even tell when this is happening to them. and don't know where they disc space went.
thats probably one of the main reasons the issue never blew up
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This is most likely the case. So many people have come into this thread and after reading on how to check the size of the WinApps folder discovered they were missing tens if not hundreds of gigabytes of space on their drives.

It is very hard to tell it has happened to you unless you actually scan the drive with a third party application as everything "looks" like it uninstalled correctly in windows and there is no indication of the data still being on the drive.

The only way people can actually find this out without scanning the drive is to try to use a "broken" game or to reinstall one that broke and find they get an error trying to do either with no way to fix it. And even then they just think they can't install the game and don't realize that the game's data is still on their drive with no safe way to remove it.

It is a monumental clusterfuck and apparently even Microsoft has no idea how to fix it as per the MS engineer that has posted in this thread.
 
Justsomeguy

Justsomeguy

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,761
UK
SigSig said:
This thread is 8 months old and this is still a thing? what are you doing ms???
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The problems with ms store are years old. It's beyond comprehension at this point. Frankly nobody in management at ms must care about fixing this. For whatever reason. Maybe they've all moved to the all new windows 11 store or something.
 
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flyinj

flyinj

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Oct 25, 2017
11,478
From all of what I have learned about this issue, it seems that the solution would be for Microsoft to make a tool that completely wipes every aspect of the local database and any other repository that keeps track of what games and apps the Microsoft store are installed on the local machine, scans every instance of a "WinApps" folder on the machine to find what apps and games are currently installed, then rebuilds the local database and other repositories entirely based on that data.
 
Thrill_house

Thrill_house

Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,244
Majik13 said:
so if I am getting Gamepass for PC only, is it still too risky? My main C drive is constantly filling up and Im always needing to delete and back things up off of it to save space. I do have most of my C drive being backedup to an internal HDD. But have never tried to use the backup to restore yet or how that process works. I can install these games to a separate slower SSDS right? Would that be safer or recommended in case I need to nuke that other SSD drive? Im only using that 2nd SSD for a cold storage of backeduped games. Any other tips or recommendations? Or should I just not bother yet?
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Good god no. Just stay away from this abortion. You don't want any of these headaches my friend
 
Tendo

Tendo

Member
Oct 26, 2017
10,935
I canceled gamepass finally. This bug is insane. Had to reformat twice because of it. What garbage.
 
TooBusyLookinGud

TooBusyLookinGud

Graphics Engineer
Verified
Oct 27, 2017
8,622
California
Tendo said:
I canceled gamepass finally. This bug is insane. Had to reformat twice because of it. What garbage.
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I wonder what's causing it because I'm not encountering this. I have deleted and moved games to different drives and my space recovers immediately. I've been trying to replicate this bug. I'm using Samsung Plus 970 NVME drives; 1: 2TB and 2: 512GB.
 
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Darktalon

Darktalon

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,476
Timcanpies said:
can this app actually remove the game pass apps though? or just tell you it is? I'm still not sure of the best way to go about getting rid of these games
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WizTree just informs you unfortunately. But it can give you peace of mind. Honestly I've always been able to fix this on my own by setting permissions and taking ownership of folders, though its a complicated affair. Also many of these folders are symlinks/junction links. They may APPEAR to be in one place but actually in another.
 
Seijuro

Seijuro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,859
flyinj said:
This is most likely the case. So many people have come into this thread and after reading on how to check the size of the WinApps folder discovered they were missing tens if not hundreds of gigabytes of space on their drives.

It is very hard to tell it has happened to you unless you actually scan the drive with a third party application as everything "looks" like it uninstalled correctly in windows and there is no indication of the data still being on the drive.

The only way people can actually find this out without scanning the drive is to try to use a "broken" game or to reinstall one that broke and find they get an error trying to do either with no way to fix it. And even then they just think they can't install the game and don't realize that the game's data is still on their drive with no safe way to remove it.

It is a monumental clusterfuck and apparently even Microsoft has no idea how to fix it as per the MS engineer that has posted in this thread.
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I'm currently looking into building a PC, and this is scary because if I wouldn't know about the issue this would be exactly what would happen to me.
Crazy MS didn't come up with a way to prevent this yet, as they hype up Game Pass pretty hard for WIndows now too.
When/if my PC is finally done I'm gonna take my business to steam. Game Pass would be a big draw, but not at any cost.
 
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flyinj

flyinj

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Oct 25, 2017
11,478
binarymelon said:
If the alternative is formatting and re-installing, what's the harm?
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The harm is that if you delete a folder in the WinApps directory it may break every Gamepass game you have currently installed.

Like I said previously, I just let the games break and take up space if I'm not currently playing them as I can still play other games on the service. If I try to remove the directory it may break everything and force me to go through an hours long format/reinstall/redownload process immediately to play any Gamepass games that currently work if I leave everything alone. This is exactly what happened on I think my second reinstallation of Windows because of this bug. Crusader Kings 3 broke, but everything else worked. I wasn't really playing CK3, but I went in and deleted it's folder using WSFTP. Doing this broke every other Gamepass game I had installed so I immediately had to reformat and reinstall Windows to continue playing the other games I was actively playing.

Eventually a game I am currently playing will break and then I'll go through the process. But there's no way I would want to take the risk of doing anything to a broken game's folder if the current games I am playing are working fine.
 
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Majik13

Majik13

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,847
CyX said:
You can do that, yea 😂 - But those are only Xbox games, no PC games.
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ah hmm, so only games avaliable on Xbox gamepass, can be streamed on xcloud? But I can stream those games over xcloud to my pc? And would any games that might have keyboard and mouse support work with my PC KB+M, or would it be gamepad only?
 

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Majik13 said:
ah hmm, so only games avaliable on Xbox gamepass, can be streamed on xcloud? But I can stream those games over xcloud to my pc? And would any games that might have keyboard and mouse support work with my PC KB+M, or would it be gamepad only?
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Xcloud games are streamed via Xbox Series X server blades, which means they're running on an XSX. To be able to use KB+M, the game would need to support that on Xbox, but even then I'm not sure if Xcloud supports that. You could try but assume not. The same goes for any settings - you'd be getting stuff like Performance/Quality mode, not the customization PC is known for.
 
Joedev

Joedev

Member
Apr 24, 2018
406
I find myself in a state where I can't install or play any gamepass games on PC. When I try to launch anything I already have installed, it just launches the windows store and takes me to gaming services, which is already installed and doesn't indicate that it needs an update...

In the past I've had issues getting gaming services to update, but I've always ended up getting it working. Kind of drawing a blank here. There is a banner at the top of the xbox app that tells me I might be having trouble installing or playing games and gives me a link to this page, but that update doesn't show up when I do windows update.
 
diggler41

diggler41

Member
Oct 27, 2017
328
Kansas City
Downloaded Flight Simulator. Deleted it after a bit. 100gb just gone and no clue where/what I can do to free it up. Limited space as is with my ssd. 🙁🙁🙁
 
Tallshortman

Tallshortman

Member
Oct 29, 2017
1,861
Khrn said:
And this is why I hope people understand UWP/Win32 aren't the issue. Because it actually makes Microsoft look worse. If this was the case, it'd be solved already. It's not.
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Yep it's a sad testament to the half assed job MS did that people still think the games are all UWP. If they had any respect for PC users they'd rebuild the xbox app/store from the ground up. I'll say it again, it's unbelievable this thing ever left beta.
 
Majik13

Majik13

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,847
Khrn said:
Xcloud games are streamed via Xbox Series X server blades, which means they're running on an XSX. To be able to use KB+M, the game would need to support that on Xbox, but even then I'm not sure if Xcloud supports that. You could try but assume not. The same goes for any settings - you'd be getting stuff like Performance/Quality mode, not the customization PC is known for.
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thanks for the info, well I guess I will just buy the Ascent, and skip GP until they figure their shit out, if they ever do.
 
PostModernMaybe

PostModernMaybe

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Oct 27, 2017
1,242
So Is this something that happens to every PC Gamepass user or just a random chance? I'm getting a gaming pc here this week and was really looking forward to using gamepass
 
Era of not Yakuza

Era of not Yakuza

Banned
Dec 4, 2017
11,483
Brazil
Good news, I only lost C: which is not so bad because I was just thinking about cleaning it.

Now I learned that PIN can be affected by windows applications....
 
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