Won't Launch after Moving to External HD (Windows 10)

I’ve been trying to figure this out since I bought a Surface Book 2. I got the 15" model for the GTX 1060, but I saved a little money by getting the 256gb model thinking hey, I can just put games on the external drive and play them off there like in other game apps and on the XBox One. All of my Steam games run awesome off of my USB 3.0 external drive. …except for Forza.

Here’s the issue. When Forza 7 was on the local SDD drive (C:), it worked perfectly. 60 FPS, highest settings, everything’s awesome. When I go to the Windows settings app menu to move the Forza app and all of its contents to my external 1T drive (that has all of my games on it - (D:), it will show the Forza 7 screen briefly, and just quit back to Windows. Last time I looked at the Windows Error log, it showed that it was a problem with a file on the C:, which is strange to me because it should be attempting to access files from the D:.

I went back to the Microsoft Store to try to fix this, and without knowing an answer, they even replaced my whole Surface Book 2 with a new one thinking that would fix it. And on both of them, still the same issue. Now, I’m thinking maybe it’s the external drive I’m using (Seagate Slim Backup 1T, USB 3.0).

Has anyone else had this problem moving their Forza 7 game to an external drive on Windows 10? If anyone knows of a way to fix this, that would be really great.

Without ranting, I’d love to free up the 96g of space on my hard drive for other space-intensive data that is more work related. Quite frankly, if it will only work on the local drive, then I’m just not going to play the game (shame, because I really love the Forza series). And not to make assumptions, but if this is a Microsoft Store thing blocking consumers from accessing Microsoft apps like Forza from running off of external drives, then I’m a lost customer - that’ll be the last purchase I ever make off of the Microsoft Store, because Steam works great.

If you’re signing into Windows 10 with a local account, try signing in with your Microsoft account.

Select the Start button, then select Settings > Accounts > Your info.
Select Sign in with a Microsoft account instead.

Reboot your PC before trying again.

The account I have for Windows 10 is a Microsoft account. Still nothing. The game will not launch on anything except for the local drive. I’m just not going to put 95 gigs of a racing game on my SSD when every Steam game on the planet works great on an external drive. It’s frustrating.

Hi there,

Does anyone have a solution for this? I have the same problem. I uninstalled from C drive - it’s way too large to stay on my main SSD drive - and then used the Windows Store to download and install again to D drive, an external SSD. The game simply won’t start. Please help.

Hi, I just want to say I am experiencing the same issue and believe this is a Microsoft store problem. I have Forza 7 and Halo Forge (both Microsoft Store games) installed on an external SSD and both of them boot the title screens on launch, and then abruptly close. All other non-Microsoft store games I launch from the SSD work fine. If anyone has a solution to this issue I would love to hear it, but I have a feeling this is something Microsoft will need to fix in a Windows 10 update.