Install games to external SSD to play on different PC

Had a feeling this was the case, thank you!

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 STEVELO539

If you've already set up and downloaded games to that external SSD in your laptop
You can only use the games downloaded from there

Because the games are attached to the "laptop ID" and the Xbox app only recognizes the games that matches with that "ID"

If maybe you want to use the external SSD with your PC and laptop you need to create a new NTFS partition and re-download the games that you want to play on PC there

you can't, as part of the drm the games are stored in an encrypted folder which will only work on that install of windows, if you re install windows you need to redownload them, you cannot move them to another pc either.

The biggest difference is that if you want to play the Series X/S version of games they must be installed on the internal SSD or the Seagate SSD Expansion card. They cannot be installed on an external USB 3.0 drive, Quick Resume will also not work with any external USB drive. Previous generation games can still be launched from an external drive.

Personally I have the Seagate expansion SSD and prefer the speed and convenience it offers knowing that no matter what I'm installing the best version of the game and able to use all the enhancements that comes from playing on a Series X. It's worth noting that for the price, it's not much more that some of the high performances SSDs available for PC but it is definitely not cheap.

It's not an external drive but a different SSD.

My boot drive (C has only 512gb capacity but I have a different SSD installed with 4 TB capacity