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[nani17]

Forget it problem solved

Well like the title says the app sucks. I have gamepass and I downloaded a good few games and have all of them on a separate drive from my main drive. Unknowingly to me if you have to wipe your system or change your drive to a new one you have to redownload all your games even if you have them all backed up. Origin, Steam, Uplay, Epic Games Store, BattleNet, etc don't have this issue at all. I went over to the Microsoft forums to ask how I tell the app to locate the game like I do for all the ones I just named and this is the response I get.

My name is Lucas. I'm an Independent Advisor and a Microsoft user just like you. I'll be happy to assist you today.

Unfortunately, you will need to download and install your games again. While I don't think there is any official statement about this, but all Xbox app games have the game license/ownership/installation information on the operational system drive - or on the computer registry.

So if you format your computer, the Xbox app will not recognize games installed on another partition/drive. The same happens if you install your games on an external storage using one computer and then try to play them on another computer using the same external storage - it will not work.

I'm sorry about this and I hope you understand. Feel free to ask back any questions.

As you can see in this picture from EA's Origin you can see Locate Game. This is there in case you have a hard drive failure or buy a new drive or even a new PC. If by chance you installed them on a different drive just location them and it will verify it for you. Saving you the hassle of having to redownload the game.

Now I have good internet but wtf are they thinking. You want people to get on this app and get your gamepass but fuck you if you buy a new drive or do a system wipe. Bit of a rant but let's be honest who wants to redownload 200 plus gigabytes when you already have the games on your drive.

 

[Hendrick's]

This functionality is already rolled out I believe. Maybe in beta.

 

[Stuart360]

I'd guess its probably soemthing to do with the drm they use as obviously you dont own these games. Still in my 30 years of PC gaming, i have never moved a game froma drive to another drive so i dont know how big of a problem this really is to be honest.

 

[Hendrick's]

Change Location of Existing Xbox Games​

The second step is to move existing games to a different location so the System Drive can have more breathing space and the games can expand if needed.

Go to Windows Settings > Apps > Apps & features. Click on the three-dot vertical menu > Advanced Options. Look for the option that allows moving the app from one location to another on the next screen. Once moved, all shortcuts and entries will be updated so there are no broken links.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

^I'm not sure that's what OP needs, he's talking about 'locate install', feature, not 'move your installed games' feature.

 

[nani17]

I'd guess its probably soemthing to do with the drm they use as obviously you dont own these games. Still in my 30 years of PC gaming, i have never moved a game froma drive to another drive so i dont know how big of a problem this really is to be honest.

So you installed them on your main drive? Let's say you buy a new PC and rather than redownloading all your games you can just back them up to an external. I've done this plenty of times and I know many people that do it too. When your new PC arrives you can put them all back onto your new PC except for the ones that run on the Xbox store.

 

[Pagusas]

of all the issues, that is a silly one to use to declare the app as sucking. Honestly they’ve improved it greatly from the state it was in at launch.

 

[Stuart360]

So you installed them on your main drive? Let's say you buy a new PC and rather than redownloading all your games you can just back them up to an external. I've done this plenty of times and I know many people that do it too. When your new PC arrives you can put them all back onto your new PC except for the ones that run on the Xbox store.

I mean i have had games installed on a seperate drive (i have 4 drives installed at the moment for example), and when i have bought say a new pc, i have just installed the drive with the games and the games were there. Is that what you mean?, you changed your cdrive and the new one wouldnt recognize the drive you had the games on?.

 

[Pegasus Actual]

You think it's bad at managing your GamePass games? Try using it to send messages on Xbox Live or for party chat

 

[64bitmodels]

Yeah there's a solution for that, but i still have quite a few of my own problems too.
The app is surprisingly unresponsive- the search bar straight up doesn't fucking work, the window can suddenly freeze up and stop working, everything's kind of a mess. it doesn't help that not all the data from your Xbox installation comes to PC- I tried to boot up sunset overdrive and resume where i was playing only to get smacked with a new game screen even though it was supposedly transferring data. It's inconsistent as hell too- data got transferred with Spelunky 2, but not with Sunset for some reason.
It's weird as hell too because the Microsoft Store on the other hand works as i'd expect it to work. It's fast, it's responsive, it's everything i'd want from a windows app. same for the actual Xbox dashboard although that has its fair share of bugs as well and can be unresponsive at times, but not as frequently as the Xbox app.
I still like the fact they make an attempt to merge with my previous Xbox ecosystem, but if this is how they're gonna do it then i might as well just bring out my series S and play the games there.

 

[nani17]

I mean i have had games installed on a seperate drive (i have 4 drives installed at the moment for example), and when i have bought say a new pc, i have just installed the drive with the games and the games were there. Is that what you mean?, you changed your cdrive and the new one wouldnt recognize the drive you had the games on?.

Yes if you change your C drive you're fucked with the Microsoft Xbox App. Again unlike steam origin etc

 

[Stuart360]

Yes if you change your C drive you're fucked with the Microsoft Xbox App. Again unlike steam origin etc

Ah right i get you. I'm guessing getting a new Cdrive and installing Gamepass, it acts like a fresh install and wont recognize that you already had Gamepass games installed on amother drive.
Again i would guess its something to do with the drm they use.
Whenever have had a drive fail in the past, i just redownload the games anyway. Thats just me though lol.

 

[ACESHIGH]

Never had a significant issue with it.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

Now I have good internet but wtf are they thinking. You want people to get on this app and get your gamepass but fuck you if you buy a new drive or do a system wipe. Bit of a rant but let's be honest who wants to redownload 200 plus gigabytes when you already have the games on your drive.

This is a couple of minutes of download

 

[yamaci17]

i think we must understad by now that xbox pc app is not competing with steam, epic or origin. its just a gateway to simply use game pass (and make more game pass sales). i dont think one would sanely buy a store version of a game instead of a steam/epic version. msoft already sells their game in steam, with good prices too

since i look at the stuff that way, i'm not bothered by lack of such features. i dont have trouble reinstalling a game as well, though it is very rare that i would need to (once, somehow my search was borked so i had to wipe my drive and reinstall windows, then i had to install 3 games. thankfully my save files were brought back from xbox cloud. that's honestly all I needed from this app)

 

[ManaByte]

Try using it to send messages on Xbox Live or for party chat

Why the fuck would you do that when that functionality is literally built into Windows?

 

[nani17]

ok, I'm a noob or Lucas is. There is no location button you just click install the game and then point the where you want to install it in the same folder as the game and it seems to work

 

[Hendrick's]

^I'm not sure that's what OP needs, he's talking about 'locate install', feature, not 'move your installed games' feature.

He can do that too.

• Open the Xbox App
• Click on your Profile picture > Select Settings
• In the Xbox Settings, go to General Section > Game install options
• Assuming you have another partition, click on the drop-down and change it to another drive

 

[kirby007]

welcome to microsoft on pc 101

 

[JimboJones]

Epic doesn't have this functionality either, quite frustrating.

 

[Pegasus Actual]

Why the fuck would you do that when that functionality is literally built into Windows?

Whether you use the shitty app or the shitty overlay it's the same underlying functionality. As in, if you join a party in one, you'll show as connected in the other.

 

[Greirat]

The Xbox PC app does suck, because it leaves multiple processes running on your PC in the background all the time, even when you're not using it. Imagine if every program on your PC did this.

 

[kiphalfton]

Is Xbox PC app ever going to leave beta? I always see people saying that, and it's been like 5 years at this point.

 

[ClosBSAS]

Never had a single issue with the app. Works flawlessly for me.

 

[BadBurger]

Microsoft encrypts the data when it downloads it from the Store, and part of how the encryption works involves its precise location on its logical disk. There's posts above showing how to move the encrypted data to another location. I'm pretty sure there's also a powershell cmdlet for it but I don't feel like looking it up.

 

[anothertech]

Never had a single issue with the app. Works flawlessly for me.

 

[Grumpy Toe Nail]

The app is slow and games can crash a decent bit compared to Steam but it has improved for me. Same stability on my 3070 laptop and my 3090 desktop for reference.

 

[Shifty]

As is the case for all of Microsoft's PC applications in the wake of the Windows 8-ening.

These are dark times.

 

[zeomax]

Again i would guess its something to do with the drm they use.

Yes. It is a leftover from the Windows Phone time. All the PC Apps from the Store are compatible with the Windows Phone and vice versa. That's why on PC it is extremely restricted what you can do and where you can install the Apps.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

He can do that too.

That just sounds like picking the default install location, and not 'locating an existing install; not the same thing.

 

[KuraiShidosha]

This app sucks for another reason. All these obnoxious UWP apps run like crap with Gsync enabled. They run at like 30 fps and it makes your mouse and monitor lag out. I freaking hate this crap and wish we could just have Win32 good old classic programs again. Modern shit sucks.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

The app isn't great, but its a GAZILLION times better now than when it was before they started allowing installs anywhere.

 

[Hendrick's]

That just sounds like picking the default install location, and not 'locating an existing install; not the same thing.

You can move the install location and you can move the games. What else do you need?

 

[crackajack]

I feel you. And I guess since some replys don't get it and others can't help, it is really impossible.

Been forever since I used a PC for gaming, but moving Steam from XP to Vista to 7 required nothing more than select the same path again at each system and was even usable in that multiboot environment. At least encountered no problem. And 7 and Vista even more are certainly old, so this was a while ago.

My sort of similar experience was on Vita: For whatever reason Sony butchered the expiration dates on Vita some months ago, suddenly said 1.1.1911 or something impossible. Some games I had to wipe and reinstall to get them working again, some, just needed a fake download in the store and realized themselves that they are actually still there just need a refreshed license. Fun when the game that won't start is not listet in the store anymore and I have to go through the my downloads list.

Heil digital DRM.

 

[ManaByte]

This app sucks for another reason. All these obnoxious UWP apps run like crap with Gsync enabled. They run at like 30 fps and it makes your mouse and monitor lag out. I freaking hate this crap and wish we could just have Win32 good old classic programs again. Modern shit sucks.

Yea this is bullshit. I'm running Halo Infinite and Sea of Thieves at 120fps.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

This app sucks for another reason. All these obnoxious UWP apps run like crap with Gsync enabled. They run at like 30 fps and it makes your mouse and monitor lag out. I freaking hate this crap and wish we could just have Win32 good old classic programs again. Modern shit sucks.

This is a straight up lie. Most of the games run just fine. Any games with issues would likely have issues on Steam as well.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Yea this is bullshit. I'm running Halo Infinite and Sea of Thieves at 120fps.

Isn't it sad when people have to straight up lie to try and make a point. Xbox app and installs have their issues, but its a LOT better now than what it was this time last year when you couldn't mod the games or even access the install folder.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

You can move the install location and you can move the games. What else do you need?

I don't think you're understanding the functionality that's being discussed here.
Moving an existing install, or moving the default install location has nothing to do with a 'locate install' feature.
The latter is only used in cases where you have the install somewhere, but the connection between the launcher and the install was lost, be it because a launcher update, because you manually moved the install, or if you are moving data wholesale between new computer installs.

By using 'locate install', the launcher can just be pointed to where the game should be, and then reactivate it as playable in the launcher; this is standard functionality in all launchers except the xbox store one. This is what OP is talking about, not managing existing installs.

 

[yamaci17]

This is a straight up lie. Most of the games run just fine. Any games with issues would likely have issues on Steam as well.

yup UWP games are rare to begin with
even then, UWP VRR is fixed. you need to enable VRR within windows settings. although as i said, UWP games are rare these days. its a thing of past now

 

[sainraja]

Why the fuck would you do that when that functionality is literally built into Windows?

Wow man. I thought you had a bias but I didn't know you were this far gone....if they are providing that functionality in the app, it should work. You are faulting him for *trying* to use something that they are providing? You gotta be kidding me.

 

[Kataploom]

Forget it problem solved

NO. It's shit. The only reason I haven't ditched Windows 11 is that the app in Windows 10 won't download anything, always with errors, I've done everything I could even fresh Windows 10 install FFS, it's just so buggy, looks like bottom-tier MS software priority, it's literally useless to me on Windows 10 beyond using it as an installed catalog (which I can just do on the web anyway). Apart from that, can't delete some games until I format the SSD because it's from an previous Windows installation I already wiped Can't believe how MS is so good and so bad when working on what they're supposed to be the best...

 

[RoboFu]

It still sucks as they took out the ability to buy games through the app. At least not on iOS.

I don’t if it’s tied to apples store rules or not but both steam and the PSN app allows you to purchase games …

 

[sainraja]

It still sucks as they took out the ability to buy games through the app. At least not on iOS.

I don’t if it’s tied to apples store rules or not but both steam and the PSN app allows you to purchase games …

Given we can buy from the PS App (doesn't matter how it's done), then there is no reason to say Apple's store rules are what's preventing them from giving us the option to buy — yes, you can just go to the MS store using the browser to achieve the same thing but they can just work that into the app, like Sony has. So yeah, Apple's not the reason why.

 

[ManaByte]

It still sucks as they took out the ability to buy games through the app. At least not on iOS.

I don’t if it’s tied to apples store rules or not but both steam and the PSN app allows you to purchase games …

It's Apple. PSN gets around it by taking you to a browser page for checkout.

 

[anothertech]

This app sucks for another reason. All these obnoxious UWP apps run like crap with Gsync enabled. They run at like 30 fps and it makes your mouse and monitor lag out. I freaking hate this crap and wish we could just have Win32 good old classic programs again. Modern shit sucks.

Ya man. Whatever happened to Games for Windows Live

Those were the days

 

[lucius]

I am on Windows 11 new PC I have Ultimate GP, I would be careful with some games even that you own certain games have orange warning if installed on external, I remember Ori and maybe Just Cause Reloaded that while downloading got stuck since it’s finicky and corrupted some system files. I got Gears 5,Halo Infinite and everything else up and running easy but those games didn’t have that orange warning. And I am fairly certain that app caused my system to freeze, but I shouldn’t have been doing anything while that app was downloading multiple files since I remember having problems with it sometimes on Windows 10, downloads are not as stable like Xbox Series in some areas.

 

[poppabk]

Given we can buy from the PS App (doesn't matter how it's done), then there is no reason to say Apple's store rules are what's preventing them from giving us the option to buy — yes, you can just go to the MS store using the browser to achieve the same thing but they can just work that into the app, like Sony has. So yeah, Apple's not the reason why.

Apple is the reason why, they put it in the app and they have to give Apple their cut. Same as you can no longer buy kindle books in the kindle app on android. Steam and PSN likely get away without paying the 30% because the purchases are not for use on the phone. It's kinda ironic that all these people converted web pages into apps and now you have to use a web page to actually do anything.

 

[GymWolf]

No shit OP, the microsoft store and xbox app are being super shit is a literal meme at this point.

 

[sainraja]

Apple is the reason why, they put it in the app and they have to give Apple their cut. Same as you can no longer buy kindle books in the kindle app on android. Steam and PSN likely get away without paying the 30% because the purchases are not for use on the phone. It's kinda ironic that all these people converted web pages into apps and now you have to use a web page to actually do anything.

You can add to cart and purchase from the PS store in the PS App (it just opens the web page in the app). Microsoft can do the same. I know if they wanted to do in-app payments then they'd have to work with Apple but Sony is DOING what we're saying without using the in-app payments aspect.

 

[jezhumphrey75]

just had halo infinite completly dissapear off the app which its now trying to download all 67gb again.....i literally played it a few days ago.....why is this app so shit and randomly deletes games.