Gamepass taking over my hardrives

Otomon · Nov 4, 2021

So I been trying to install apps to my external as that is where I like to keep my games, and after much research I found out it wasn't working cause the drive needs to be NFTS to work for most games. Some games do work on exFAT however.. and finally found one that successfully installed to it.

HERE IS THE ISSUE:

1)For some reason even tho it installed to external, it also took over the same amount of space on the internal even tho it didnt install there. At first I thought it was just temporary download files or something, but nope 10GB of my internal where just gone and uninstalling from Gamepass only deleted it from external drive. I tried running disk cleanup but only thing I found there was something called "Delivery optimization files" which were the same size of the game that I had uninstalled from external... is that just a coincidence? How do I clean whatever Gamepass installed from internal?

2)Second issue is that Gamepass installed a bunch of folders on my external, and I cannot delete a single one of them or even see their properties, just keeps telling me I need "Permissions from everyone to delete" (im using Admin account btw)

Starting to think Gamepass was a bad idea... at this rate Ill have to format all my drives

:)

Jesse E'

I don't know why it does that, but it doesn't happen often

Otomon

Thank you so much! You pretty much answered all my questions and put my mind at ease ^_^

Obsessive Power

Hi

The Delivery optimization files are generally related to Windows updates and Windows Store Apps. These are temporary files and can be safely deleted from the Windows Disk Clean-Up tool.

To make full use of Game-Pass and the Windows Store, your drive needs to be NTFS, it won't work fully with exFAT.

All Windows 10 games and Apps from the Windows Store (including games from PC Game Pass) install to secure encrypted folder called 'WindowsApps'. On the C:\ drive the WindowsApps folder is located in C:\Program Files\WindowsApps. But to see this folder you'll need to unhide it.

For any other drive, the WindowsApps folder can be found in the root directory along with two other folders 'WpSystem' and ‘WUDownloadCache’. So, for example, if your drive is D:\ it will be located in D:\WindowsApps. Unlike its namesake in the C:\ drive this folder is not hidden on other drives, but it is still encrypted and protected.

Even with an admin account these files are encrypted, taking ownership of these folders won't change anything either. It is possible to delete this folder manually, here is a guide

You should be able to delete games in these encrypted folders from either the Game Pass or from Windows Settings > Apps and Features. Deleting the folder should only be done as a last resort, or if your drive came from a different PC.

Jesse E'

Hello Otomon, My name is Jesse. I'm an Independent Advisor and a member of the Microsoft community and I'd love to assist you today.

For your C drive, check:

windows > serviceprofiles > networkservice > appdata > local>microsoft > windows > deliveryoptimisation > cache > it should lead you to a folder, the size of which exactly matches the amount of storage you are missing.

Otomon

Thank you! Not sure why it would store such useless files... I get that it needs them to install but why do we have to manually delete?

Gamepass taking over my hardrives