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

[Lakeside]

The best solution that I found was to install all Windows store or Game Pass games on a dedicated drive. If a game doesn't allow that then it doesn't get installed. Even this isn't perfectly clean.

In the end I gave up on it and that is just an extra scratch drive. I keep up with the thread from time to time because I keep hoping they fixed the mess.

 

[Temperance]

The best solution that I found was to install all Windows store or Game Pass games on a dedicated drive. If a game doesn't allow that then it doesn't get installed. Even this isn't perfectly clean.

In the end I gave up on it and that is just an extra scratch drive. I keep up with the thread from time to time because I keep hoping they fixed the mess.

Click to shrink...

Thought i read about that still putting things on your C drive? Might be wrong.

In any case i think the only safe way would be to dual boot two Windows. Regular one and a Windows Store games one.

 

[Lakeside]

Thought i read about that still putting things on your C drive? Might be wrong.

In any case i think the only safe way would be to dual boot two Windows. Regular one and a Windows Store games one.

Click to shrink...

Oh for sure, it's not perfect by any means. It's just the least impactful of the bad things that Microsoft is doing here, assuming you want to use it. I got fed up with the thing failing to install games, going through the troubleshooting with a lot of the methods presented in this thread, then being told by MS support that I needed to reinstall Windows. I did that a couple times but never again for that reason.

I guess that dual booting would be a good thing but I just wound up reinstalling Windows for my AMD hardware upgrade months back and just decided to be done with it. I can play Game Pass stuff on Xbox or not at all. Sucks.

 

[demu]

 

[SanderJK]

Well looks like I just joined this club. Had Wasteland 3 installed, it gave an error message a week ago after reboot.
I uninstall it, fine.
I reinstalled it to another drive, also fine.
Then 2 days later I notice the error is back. I click it, it disappears.
Now it pops up again, and if I click it, it comes back after 15mins.

 

[Tallshortman]

Click to shrink...

Gotta love xbox just continuing to plug their ears as PC gamepass continues to be garbage.

 

[Fiddle]

I opened Flight Sim on Gamepass PC today and it opened to a screen saying I needed to insert the game disc. It doesn't let me continue. Game is broken.

Click to shrink...

I then opened WindowsApps to see how large the folder was, and it was 1GB. Usually the file size is the correct size of the game (even though I'm aware this is faked in Explorer and the actual files are stored in the MSI folder). I uninstalled the game and saw 120GB+ gained from my hard drives so thankfully I didn't lose the space.

Another thing - today my friend and I tried to play Gears 5, but when he opened the game it said it needed to update and it closed itself. When it closed, it uninstalled the game from his computer. He now has to reinstall 90GB for no reason.

 

[Fatmanp]

Ok so here is my setup

C Drive - OS (250gb)
D Drive - Mechanical Drive for general storage (3GB)
G Drive - SSD for games (2tb)
E Drive - SSD for games (2tb)

I had Sea of Thieves and Gears Tactics installed to the G Drive. Yesterday i decide to download Humankind. All is going fine when I notice that an update for Sea of Thieves gets added to the queue but it fails to download with error 0x8007005. Uninstalled Sea of Thieves and tried to redownload thinking it was a botched update but have the same issue. Try to install it to my E Drive with the same issue. Try to install it to both C and D Drives and the download starts (i do not want it installed here for capacity and speed reasons). After reading through various topics I take full ownership of all Windows apps folders, set the G drive as primary install location for windows apps, rename windowsapps folder and wpsystem foler to .old but none of it works. In the process I find that I cannot install anything (even Humankind) to my G Drive and even my E Drive. I set my E drive as preferred location for app installs and Humankind seems happy enough as do other games. Sea of Theives will still not install anywhere but C and D still. I am assuming that Windows thinks Sea of Theives is still installed somewhere because in the start menu it shows as a new app at the top of the list and has a download bar. Humankind and other new installs do not have this whilst downloading. There is something about the G Drive that it is not liking despite being the location of the only two games i have installed through Gamepass for over a year without issues. I had a similar issue with Ori last year which I eventually managed to solve but cannot remember how.

Any ideas?

 

[FantasticMrSnake]

the solitaire show up on xbox app now, so strange, it probably comes with windows right? i have never installed it

 

[flyinj]

the solitaire show up on xbox app now, so strange, it probably comes with windows right? i have never installed it

Click to shrink...

The same thing happened to me. Good to know it's not my Microsoft Store breaking even more.

 

[Ryousuke]

the solitaire show up on xbox app now, so strange, it probably comes with windows right? i have never installed it

Click to shrink...

This is a version without ads, and bonus xp or whatever

 

[Psykoboy2]

I really wanna play Humankind, but damn...I don't think I can open this door given all I've read about it. Not the game, but Gamepass on PC.

 

[JJD]

I really wanna play Humankind, but damn...I don't think I can open this door given all I've read about it. Not the game, but Gamepass on PC.

Click to shrink...

As a new PC player, I have three fucking years of game pass and I'm considering just ignoring it and buying what I want on Steam since I don't have an option to refund it. I don't want to deal with this shit.

 

[OldDirtyGamer]

I really wanna play Humankind, but damn...I don't think I can open this door given all I've read about it. Not the game, but Gamepass on PC.

Click to shrink...

You probably wont run into many/any problems. Ive downloaded and played a ton of games on gamepass PC. Ive only had a few games not uninstall immediately, and only a few games that wouldnt work off of the OS drive. It does suck when it happens but it doesnt happen often ( for me at least ).

 

[blueredandgold]

No ideal way to recover what's in an old drive no longer used for GamePass content, right? Hidden behind that MSIXVC folder that I cannot open. I'm using a fresh install of GamePass (not Windows) and going to try and play some smaller, less riskier games and then attempt to uninstall them/this install of the program itself once again and see if I can replicate the issue.

 

[Dec]

As a new PC player, I have three fucking years of game pass and I'm considering just ignoring it and buying what I want on Steam since I don't have an option to refund it. I don't want to deal with this shit.

Click to shrink...

I can never understand this. I've used game pass on PC monthly before there even was a game pass PC (only play anywhere games) and never had any problems with hundreds of installs and games left installed for a year straight, updating normally the entire time. To just waste money and panic over a problem you don't even have just makes no sense to me at all.

 

[secretanchitman]

As a new PC player, I have three fucking years of game pass and I'm considering just ignoring it and buying what I want on Steam since I don't have an option to refund it. I don't want to deal with this shit.

Click to shrink...

Speaking as someone who got into Game Pass Ultimate back in E3 2019 with the $1 deal and 2 years of cheap XBL, I transitioned into buying the games I want on Steam where everything just fucking works.

IsThereAnyDeal plus Steam sales just seal the deal honestly and unless Microsoft and Valve figure out a way to get Game Pass on Steam (using the Steam backend, not the crap Windows Store), I will not be resubscribing once my subscription is over in October.

I can never understand this. I've used game pass on PC monthly before there even was a game pass PC (only play anywhere games) and never had any problems with hundreds of installs and games left installed for a year straight, updating normally the entire time. To just waste money and panic over a problem you don't even have just makes no sense to me at all.

Click to shrink...

You're lucky. Most of us in this thread have had problems (small to severe) with it so that's why we're fed up to the point where we'd rather buy the game on Steam where it will be virtually guaranteed to work whereas gamble with our drive space/Windows install using the Windows Store. Flyinj has had probably the worst of it, as evidenced by this thread and his OP.

 

[ss_lemonade]

You're lucky. Most of us in this thread have had problems (small to severe) with it so that's why we're fed up to the point where we'd rather buy the game on Steam where it will be virtually guaranteed to work whereas gamble with our drive space/Windows install using the Windows Store. Flyinj has had probably the worst of it, as evidenced by this thread and his OP.

Click to shrink...

I never really had issues with the game pass app itself (whenever I did, I found workarounds to fix them, which I agree is still ridiculous). My bigger issue with game pass games are sometimes, they end up being inferior to other versions. For example, IIRC Metro Exodus had weird, forced loading issues whenever you booted the game up. Another more recent example would be The Ascent, with it's lack of DLSS and Raytracing which was only recently fixed.

 

[secretanchitman]

I never really had issues with the game pass app itself (whenever I did, I found workarounds to fix them, which I agree is still ridiculous). My bigger issue with game pass games are sometimes, they end up being inferior to other versions. For example, IIRC Metro Exodus had weird, forced loading issues whenever you booted the game up. Another more recent example would be The Ascent, with it's lack of DLSS and Raytracing which was only recently fixed.

Click to shrink...

Oh yeah definitely! It's just a crapshoot when you download the Windows Store version, because you have no idea if a feature will be straight up omitted (Overcooked 2 doesn't have matchmaking nor let you invite players into story mode) or The Ascent lacking features until recently like you mentioned.

I'm happy to use workarounds but when the Windows Store version has clear issues with not only how it manages games but actual bugs and incomplete features compared to the Steam version? It makes me appreciate how Steam handles everything to the point where I'd rebuy games on the platform just to avoid using the Windows Store, even though Game Pass is a fantastic deal.

 

[Zom]

I think this issue was why I just quit it with gamepass, it was a pain to install and uninstall.

 

[Multiverse Moo]

Changed my vote. Thought why not try that "tutorial" the other thread mentioned?

And no, clearing disk space with Windows cleanup didn't help. I mean, it cleared like 9MB lol...

Then I went through all the steps (i know they made a file, too) and my DESPITE MY GAMES BEING INSTALLED ON A SECONDARY DRIVE.... my C drive is now over 100GB lighter. Which is great, bc for some reason it had steadily been going down and the only stuff I had been installing was gamepass games.

Like, I was down to 30GB on my C drive, which is NOT GOOD when I need all my apps to run properly for video production and VFX work lol. Now I'm at 158GB free.

 

[FantasticMrSnake]

You mean this thread?

How To: Properly remove XBOX GamePass / Windows Store Games and Apps if they don't uninstall correctly and keep eating space on Win10/11

IMPORTANT INFO: As user flyinj noted this won't help you if your AppX database got corrupted. It will still reclaim space but likely not fix any installation issues! This guide is really just for these cases where you uninstall a game, it gets removed from the database and isn't listed anywhere...

www.resetera.com

 

[Dec]

You're lucky. Most of us in this thread have had problems (small to severe) with it so that's why we're fed up to the point where we'd rather buy the game on Steam where it will be virtually guaranteed to work whereas gamble with our drive space/Windows install using the Windows Store. Flyinj has had probably the worst of it, as evidenced by this thread and his OP.

Click to shrink...

If you've had problems, sure. But there are many people that have never used game pass, read this thread and swear off game pass. You can perhaps imagine why from my perspective of having no issues, seeing someone pay full price for games that are on game pass despite never using game pass for fear of technical issues seems pretty nonsensical.

Also I'm not sure I'd say I'm lucky. Seems like this issue has a cause, even if no one knows what it is.

 

[DustyVonErich]

If you've had problems, sure. But there are many people that have never used game pass, read this thread and swear off game pass. You can perhaps imagine why from my perspective of having no issues, seeing someone pay full price for games that are on game pass despite never using game pass for fear of technical issues seems pretty nonsensical.

Also I'm not sure I'd say I'm lucky. Seems like this issue has a cause, even if no one knows what it is.

Click to shrink...

It's nonsensical for some people to see others having an issue and deciding to wait for it be resolved first? Here on a forum in which people routinely decide they're waiting on the next iteration of hardware because of x issue (stick drift, coil whine, quieter fan, beefier specs etc) and no one bats an eye at that?

Some people enjoyed Returnal as is and were fine. Others are deciding to wait for a mid-run save feature that the devs are now looking into, because runs we're getting screwed up just relying on the rest feature (plus updates that would end runs). Is it nonsensical for them to wait too?

People hold off on things for different reasons and comfort levels. The fact that they're seeing others experiencing an issue that either people can't nail down the cause or might even be stumping MS at the moment justifies their position to wait a couple months or whatever until it's resolved imo.

 

[secretanchitman]

If you've had problems, sure. But there are many people that have never used game pass, read this thread and swear off game pass. You can perhaps imagine why from my perspective of having no issues, seeing someone pay full price for games that are on game pass despite never using game pass for fear of technical issues seems pretty nonsensical.

Also I'm not sure I'd say I'm lucky. Seems like this issue has a cause, even if no one knows what it is.

Click to shrink...

I completely understand your point. However, this thread clearly has people (myself included) who has/had issues with PC Game Pass so it makes sense for us to either try workarounds, wait for an update or just give up and purchase the game elsewhere.

It's nonsensical for some people to see others having an issue and deciding to wait for it be resolved first? Here on a forum in which people routinely decide they're waiting on the next iteration of hardware because of x issue (stick drift, coil whine, quieter fan, beefier specs etc) and no one bats an eye at that?

Some people enjoyed Returnal as is and were fine. Others are deciding to wait for a mid-run save feature that the devs are now looking into, because runs we're getting screwed up just relying on the rest feature (plus updates that would end runs). Is it nonsensical for them to wait too?

People hold off on things for different reasons and comfort levels. The fact that they're seeing others experiencing an issue that either people can't nail down the cause or might even be stumping MS at the moment justifies their position to wait a couple months or whatever until it's resolved imo.

Click to shrink...

Agreed with you on this. I'm honestly a super patient person with PC gaming but I was getting really tired of the jank/gamble so I just moved exclusively over to Steam and couldn't be happier.

 

[xyla]

I'm not sure if this is Game Pass related, but yesterday evening my PC crashed and when I rebooted, the Game Pass app just showed a black screen. Didn't think much since I didn't have time to start a game anyways.

Today I've tried again... nothing so far, it stays black. The windows store opens, but I can't click on the updates panel, the PC the app just closes after a while. Is this a known issue? Are there any workarounds to get things running again?

 

[CrichtonKicks]

Looks like Gamepass on PC is a no go for me on PC. Games won't start because "they aren't attached to my account". MS support was useless in resolving it- they passed me from Xbox Team->PC Team->Xbox team to no avail.

Googling shows this usually happens if your region settings are messed up but I've quadruple checked my region settings and they are set correctly.

 

[SanderJK]

There was some behind the scenes work done where the Xbox App is now more seperate from the windows store.

I'm still in the boat where exactly 1 game fails (Wasteland 3), has been since the summer. About twice a week it pings me saying it failed to install.
I used to get an error code (ending in 00013, don't recall the start, I filed it with MS but I cannot find where such a filing goes...)

Now it's just stuck as this:

 

[alphacat]

Game Pass PC has been pretty fucked for me after installing Windows 11. It was working perfectly fine before so I am not sure what the issue is. Games take forever to prepare/download, and I can't play games while something is qued. Any fixes for this?

Edit: I think I am going to make a thread about this. Curious to see everyone's experience with Game Pass PC on Windows 11.

 

[Jay_AD]

I had the "not freeing up space" thing for a while, and it drove me nuts. Turning off the delivery optimization did do the trick though, so I'm pretty sure it was just that. That also means the space would have been freed up if it was needed for anything else. It is kinda weird how Windows does not surface that information at all, that would have spared me a few grey hairs.

Right now my only issues are with the EA Desktop app. Pretty much a diceroll if that thing works or not. The Xbox app is fine right now, although having written this I'm almost certain I've jinxed it.

 

[The Johnstruct]

I am completely unable to install to my drive that has all the space. I followed guides and when I did that it completely broke and resulted in corrupt folders that were a nightmare to get rid of. (it was a while back now I don't remember all the details)

 

[srylain]

Curious to see everyone's experience with Game Pass PC on Windows 11.

Click to shrink...

So far for me everything's been normal, also haven't ever had any problems with Win10 either. Only used it to download and play Visage so far, but outside of the download taking forever (because a bunch of the bloatware apps were stuck for a while) no problems.

 

[flyinj]

There was some behind the scenes work done where the Xbox App is now more seperate from the windows store.

I'm still in the boat where exactly 1 game fails (Wasteland 3), has been since the summer. About twice a week it pings me saying it failed to install.
I used to get an error code (ending in 00013, don't recall the start, I filed it with MS but I cannot find where such a filing goes...)

Now it's just stuck as this:

Click to shrink...

You should check your windows/temp folder.

Every time Windows tries to update one of my broken games it spams the temp folder with massive error logs.

 

[Fatmanp]

There was some behind the scenes work done where the Xbox App is now more seperate from the windows store.

I'm still in the boat where exactly 1 game fails (Wasteland 3), has been since the summer. About twice a week it pings me saying it failed to install.
I used to get an error code (ending in 00013, don't recall the start, I filed it with MS but I cannot find where such a filing goes...)

Now it's just stuck as this:

Click to shrink...

I had some errors installing certain games about a month ago. The app updated last week and it works now..........somehow.

 

[SanderJK]

You should check your windows/temp folder.


Every time Windows tries to update one of my broken games it spams the temp folder with massive error logs.

Click to shrink...

I saw your posts about it earlier, that isn't happening to me to that extent. Every time I click it, the following happens:

It generates a 1kb file for me, which is just this:

Package full name = DeepSilver.56575194F7E04_1.0.33.0_x64__hmv7qcest37me
AppXDeploymentServer version = 10.0.19041.1202
Result code = 0x80073CF9
Component failure code = 0x87E00013
ETW Event ID = 495
Deployment Operation = 1
Package Manager State = 13
OSIM state = 0
Failed component name = NONE
IsEvtExportLogPresent =


And a 20mb Windows Event file which I am unable to parse mostly, but definitely keeps repeating that package name in some sort of error message about "TransientSourceErrors" whatever that means. Now there's about fifty there, so about 1gb worth...

 

[hwarang]

This shit is still unresolved?

 

[flyinj]

I saw your posts about it earlier, that isn't happening to me to that extent. Every time I click it, the following happens:

It generates a 1kb file for me, which is just this:

Package full name = DeepSilver.56575194F7E04_1.0.33.0_x64__hmv7qcest37me
AppXDeploymentServer version = 10.0.19041.1202
Result code = 0x80073CF9
Component failure code = 0x87E00013
ETW Event ID = 495
Deployment Operation = 1
Package Manager State = 13
OSIM state = 0
Failed component name = NONE
IsEvtExportLogPresent =


And a 20mb Windows Event file which I am unable to parse mostly, but definitely keeps repeating that package name in some sort of error message about "TransientSourceErrors" whatever that means. Now there's about fifty there, so about 1gb worth...

Click to shrink...

Oh so it doesn't try to update it on its own? Every 6 hours my Windows Store tries to update my five broken games and keeps retrying every 10 minutes unless I manually abort it.

It generates about 50 gigs of error files every 6 hours if I don't catch it abd manually abort each game

 

[Timu]

This shit is still unresolved?

Click to shrink...

Nope, and I don't think it will ever be TBH.

 

[PKrockin]

I've had problems before but yesterday I had a good unrestricted internet connection for once so I went to download Subnautica Below Zero, Scarlet Nexus and some other games. Every single download aborts immediately with error 0x800700e9. Spent about two hours troubleshooting it and nothing worked. It's only Game Pass games that do this--I can download free to play games just fine. Guess I'm stuck for the next week minimum without the games I paid good money to access--who knows if it'll ever start working again? Maybe I have to wipe the hard drive and reinstall Windows? This shit is a complete disgrace.

 

[flyinj]

I've had problems before but yesterday I had a good unrestricted internet connection for once so I went to download Subnautica Below Zero, Scarlet Nexus and some other games. Every single download aborts immediately with error 0x800700e9. Spent about two hours troubleshooting it and nothing worked. It's only Game Pass games that do this--I can download free to play games just fine. Guess I'm stuck for the next week minimum without the games I paid good money to access--who knows if it'll ever start working again? Maybe I have to wipe the hard drive and reinstall Windows? This shit is a complete disgrace.

Click to shrink...

Did you try this:

Load up windows store and log yourself out
Close windows store
Run a CMD window as admin
Run "wsreset.exe"
Wait for it to finish (it takes awhile and will open the windows store when it is done)
Reboot PC

This sometimes works to fix similar issues.

 

[Christo750]

This must be why my m2 is full and says 185 gigs of applications but there's no way in hell I have that much installed. I think I put 2 or 3 games on it when I first booted up my computer.

That sucks.

 

[PKrockin]

Did you try this:

Load up windows store and log yourself out
Close windows store
Run a CMD window as admin
Run "wsreset.exe"
Wait for it to finish (it takes awhile and will open the windows store when it is done)
Reboot PC

This sometimes works to fix similar issues.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I tried that a few times.

 

[GameAddict411]

i don't understand why this has been an issue for this long. Like deleting shit should be this hard. Has this issue been brought up by anyone in the media?

 

[flyinj]

Yeah, I tried that a few times.

Click to shrink...

If it's any consolation the first game that always breaks after I reinstall windows is Wasteland 3 for me as well. Abd nothing fixes it except a Windows reformat.

Welcome to the club :(

 

[Insomniac]

Been using PC Game Pass since Day 1 with rarely an issue, but today I join the "Deleted a game but the space never freed up" club. Seems like it might have been related to an error that popped up while installing today's latest Sable patch. Weird thing is that it affected all of my installed games and not just Sable. Is that normal? Anyways, I nuked the entire drive (which is basically just a dedicated Game Pass drive at this point anyways) but the bug persists after reinstalling those games.

So yeah, assuming I don't want to reinstall Windows or risk creating more issues by following the steps in this thread, how screwed am I? Am I destined to having to format the drive every time I want to clear up space?

 

[blueredandgold]

i don't understand why this has been an issue for this long. Like deleting shit should be this hard. Has this issue been brought up by anyone in the media?

Click to shrink...

It's an edge case of an edge case situation and I'm right in it at the moment with missing hard drive space, so I am frustrated but I kinda get it's not something that's easily 'reportable'.

Media-worthy is a different story. Heh.

At the moment I can't launch the app at all, now it might be the app's general crappiness but it might also be caused by something else me (the end user) is doing. It's giving me a strange error message saying I need to install extra add-on software to keep it talking to the MS Store App, and it won't let me log in/log out.

I have MS Office installed under a different MS account to my Xbox username account now too, so maybe there's again something that's from column a, and column b.

 

[flyinj]

Been using PC Game Pass since Day 1 with rarely an issue, but today I join the "Deleted a game but the space never freed up" club. Seems like it might have been related to an error that popped up while installing today's latest Sable patch. Weird thing is that it affected all of my installed games and not just Sable. Is that normal? Anyways, I nuked the entire drive (which is basically just a dedicated Game Pass drive at this point anyways) but the bug persists after reinstalling those games.

So yeah, assuming I don't want to reinstall Windows or risk creating more issues by following the steps in this thread, how screwed am I? Am I destined to having to format the drive every time I want to clear up space?

Click to shrink...

Unfortunately one of the worst things you can do in that situation is delete a windows apps folder from a drive. That almost always results in corruption of the AppX database, which is pretty much impossible to repair.

So yeah, the only solution is most likely to reformat everything and reinstall Windows.

 

[Moebius]

Gamepass on PC should be illegal until this gets fixed.

 

[flyinj]

An update on my current situation:

I am on my fifth reinstall of Windows, and have about 25 Gamepass games installed. So far five games have failed (Wasteland 3, Crusader Kings 3, Grounded, Tell me Why and Minecraft Dungeons). Windows will try to autoupdate these games on its own (even though I have turned off auto updating in like four different locations in Windows). This results in Windows generating huge error logs when the games fail, and Windows will try to update them automatically every 10 minutes. This generates about 50 gigs of error files every 6 hours. I can stop it temporarily if I manually abort each of the games. This can stop them from trying to update for up to a day.

Every time I update any game on Gamepass/MS Store I need to abort these 5 broken games from updating or it will fill my system drive with error logs.

With Flight Simulator, it fails on update every time as well. However, if I log out of the Windows Store, run wsreset.exe, then reboot my computer it will update correctly. This is the only game that works on. And every time it gets an update I need to do this.

To reiterate, not only are these games broken and uninstallable taking up all their space on the drive, but they ALSO cause my system drive to fill with 50 gigs every six hours if I don't babysit them constantly.

I'm waiting for Windows 11 to be more stable before upgrading, so I'm basically living with this completely fucked install of Windows until I upgrade to 11.

 

[Insomniac]

Unfortunately one of the worst things you can do in that situation is delete a windows apps folder from a drive. That almost always results in corruption of the AppX database, which is pretty much impossible to repair.

So yeah, the only solution is most likely to reformat everything and reinstall Windows.

Click to shrink...

So nuking the drive made it worse? FWIW I tried WSReset prior and it didn't work. Are there other steps that are generally effective or is it a case of, once it starts, it won't stop?

Oh well, at least now I've got plans for Satuday.