Can't change install location for new apps on Windows 11

Hey, so far so good, but there's another issue, on my E: Disk whenever I try to rename WindowsApps, it always says that the folder or a file in it is open in another program, even if I restart my PC and try to delete it right when I log in, it still says it's open somewhere.




There are a couple of games installed there, that I had before I reinstalled Windows, so now the Xbox App doesn't detect them and I also can't delete them.

Hi and thanks for reaching Microsoft Xbox gamer's community. My name is Josef.
I'm an Independent Advisor and a Microsoft Xbox user like you.

Hope you're doing great today despite this C4k3ss

Just to confirm, your E: and D; drives are formatted as NTFS, right?
Double check this opening File explorer >my computer >Right-click on the drive >properties

If that's the case, please try changing permission for the windowsapps, XboxGames and WpSystem folder:

Press Windows + E and go to the drive where game is installed.

Right click on the folder and select properties > Go to the Security tab and select Advanced:

Click on Continue in the Permissions tab > Select Change > Click Advanced in the Select User or Group window, then Find now:

Select your user account and click on Ok > Click on Ok and Apply on every window and close them.

Once you did this with the folders, add a .old at the end.
Your folders needs to look like this:
WpSystem.old
WindowsApps.old
XboxGames.old

Restart your PC and try again

I just noticed that this problem is under “known issues” for the current version so it’s being worked on.

But the workaround that is given to change the settings of “Let this app run in the background” to “always”, does not exist in my windows 11. As in, the “Background app permissions” section is not in the advanced options for installed apps. Any idea where this is located in current windows 11, or why it’s not there?

In Windows 10, you can now select where your new Windows apps from the Store will install and save data to by default instead of on the Windows drive.

You can select to install new Windows apps to any internal or external drive, including SD cards, USB drives, and USB flash drives. You cannot use mapped network drives, and you can only use one location at a time to save apps to. The drives will not need to
be formatted to be able to use them to install and store Windows apps.

Windows 10 will only install new apps to the currently selected location.
Existing apps do not get moved to the new location. If you wanted your existing apps installed to the new location as well, then you could uninstall the apps you want, and install them again to have them installed to the new location. You can
lose the existing data for the app by doing this though.

Follow the steps to change the location of the apps.

1. Open the Settings app, and click/tap on the System icon.
2. Click/tap on Storage on the left side. On the right side under
   Save locations, select the drive you want New apps will save to.
3. When finished, you can close Settings.

Note: The default location is
This PC for the Windows C: drive.

Thanks for reply! I've tried everything you told. I can't change desired drive where new apps are going to be installed. The only option is drive C. My drives are formatted in NTFS. I am using Windows 11.