Not sure what PC users can answer this but I went looking for the install folder in my Windowsapps folder (where everything else is) to see where the files were after dowloading FH5. I was curious to see if FH5 had a code name like the other installs (Sunrise, Apollo etc) and wanted to make sure it was there properly . To my surprise there is no proper install folder with any files in it. Just a folder named with a few roman numerals and inside one giant 101gb downloaded file and a couple of small files. I figured it would actually turn into a regular game folder once downloaded. Will it expand when the game starts for the first time or is something drastically wrong? If anyone on PC could check their installation location and tell me if they’re seeing the same thing that would be great. I’m pretty worried that something’s wrong right now.
From previous experience with Forza downloads it’s best not to start changing folder permissions to even be able to look into the folders. You’re looking at a full re-download if you get something messed up.
I’m not “messing” with anything. I simply asked a question. It literally takes 2 seconds to look at your game install folder. Not sure why you think viewing a folder can somehow alter a giant file. That’s not how a PC works. The most that can happen is I delete it by accident (which wouldn’t happen) and then undelete it which would effect nothing. I would appreciate just staying on topic to get my question
answered instead of lessons in file viewing. I’ve been going into folders my whole life to view files and have never had any problems with any game, Microsoft or otherwise. Pretty sure I’d have to be on a different level of stupid to view a file wrong.
I can’t even view any game files downloaded from MS installed on my SSD unless I change permissions.
That isn’t a huge thing to do. Just click the “hidden files” box in the “view” section of file explorer and it cahnges it forever. It literally takes less than a second. It’s the first thing I check on a new computer/install. I don’t know how anyone with a computer wouldn’t want to know what’s on their computer of what’s happening with thier files. It avoids a lot problems and questions.
Man, installing games through xbox app for pc is always a pain in the ass.
I’ve made the mistake of starting my installation for FH5 through microsoft store, so it started installing directly in the wrong drive.
I cancel the installation a minute in, installation does not give a F about what i want and continues installing, i pause it on xbox app and voilá, installation is now broken and unresponsive.
I restart my pc because i couldn’t pause or continue the installation at this point, as soon as i get back in the xbox app/microsoft store, the game automatically starts downloading again on the WRONG DRIVE once again. This time around i managed to cancel the installation with success BUT the game is still occupying close to 100gb of hard drive space that i can’t seem to find anywhere on the drive, it’s as if the game created invisible files i can’t detect anywhere on the drive and now i am stuck with 36gb free space on that same drive because of this stupid issue. A thing i noticed is that after restarting my pc, the installation had gone bonkers, it was installing FH5 and expansion 1 i believe, both downloads were occupying the same size, like 110gb each, and then i attempt to install the game on the correct drive, and it says i don’t have enough space (i have around 130gb freespace on this one drive), so i get the lack of space on my drive, i restart xbox app, go check on the installation info, and this time it says i can install on that one drive i wanted to install from the start.
I seriously would like to know WTF is going on with pre installing games on windows 10, it’s always a mess. Now i have to figure out WTF is going on with my smaller drive because of this stupid situation. I seriously can’t find any recent large file size on this drive to justify the lack of storage.
I think the issue i am having is that the game started two installations of the same game, this could have been avoided if microsoft didn’t make such an half baked launcher to begin with. Every single game i preloaded on pc, there has been an issue day one, beats the purpose of preloading a game if it’s not playable day one due to download issues with the launcher(s).
I remember in microsoft store, there is no install button, it tells youto go to xbox app to download. but i’ve seen many ppl saying issues while installing directly from ms store. idk why they didnt get the prompt like I did, it is a mess for sure
If anyone comes across the same issue as me, where an installation of a game on microsoft store or xbox pc app is occupying drive space even after removing it, then i advise you to use windirstat, scan the drive in question as an admin and look for the suspicious file that is occupying extra space in your drive. For me it was a specific file with 102gb file size inside the windowsapps/MSIXVC/3D263E92-93CD-4F9B-90C7-5438150CECBF (this same file had 3 extension formats, so 4 files with same name), then i proceeded to give admin rights to modify windowsapps folder under the wrong drive that i installed in by mistake, then i manually deleted that one file with the large size and ignored all the other ones (do not delete anything else). If you delete anything else other than the large file, it might break your windows store completly and you have to make a new windows install to fix the problem. The file name varies from user to user, on my main drive, where i install all games and apps, i have 2 files with similar names and both having 3 extensions each. Making a total of 8 files, 2 of which are large. I don’t touch these ones because this is the main location i install windows games in, the 102gb file i deleted on the other drive was created due to a fail installation in the wrong drive. So it was less risky to manually delete the large file there.
There are quite alot of reports of people deleting the MSIXVC folder and having the windows store not function anymore, which means xbox app for pc will stop working aswell. And from the looks of it, the only fix is to make a new windows installation to replace the deleted files, even manually removing windows store and installing it again via command prompts, will not fix it.
Huge thanks for the info! May I ask you how you’ve managed to finally install to a different drive?
Finally I was able to find a way to install it to a different drive:
Option 1: Install Xbox App and it’ll allow you to choose the installation drive.
Option 2: Install to C: drive via Windows Store. Don’t launch the game. Move the game to another location using Windows Settings->Apps->Forza Horizon 5->Move
Hi mate option 1 did not work i have the xbox app but im using Windows 11 not sure if this helps
Option 2 i Tried it was initially on C drive but then tried to move it to the D drive made no difference