Rage 2 will not start - only launches the Crash Reporter

Hey there XboxPCGamer,

Thanks for reaching out to the Forums for help with Rage 2. I can totally understand how this could be frustrating. If it's a Rage 2 specific problem, the best assistance would probably be gained from contacting
Bethesda help directly.

When you get the chance, reach out to them and let us know if that helped.

Thanks for reading!

Hey XboxPCGamer,

Thank
you for letting us know that the issue has been fixed. We'll be locking the thread as the issue has been resolved. If you require any help with any other issues, please feel free to come back to the Xbox Forums for further assistance. If anyone needs assistance
with this issue or any other issues, we suggest creating a new thread.

Thank you
again and have a great day!

So looks like this all goes back to Microsoft's beta app.

I wound up uninstalling all the games via the app and then uninstall the app itself.

Then I discovered that the WindowsApps folder still had all the content in there.

Even after taking ownership of the folder - all the content was still there and I could not delete them.

I was getting the "still in use by system" messages - even after using utilities to delete "locked" folder upon boot wouldn't work.

So I went nuclear - and deleted the entire volume (I had a separate volume dedicated just for this app).

Started over - and reinstalled the Xbox app, then just the rage2 game, and rebooted.

Now it launches.

My recommendation would be for folks to have a separate XboxGamePass volume and keep just these games on it. So when the games don't work - all you have to do it delete the volume and start fresh. Definitely don't install them on the C:\, because that
WindowsApps folder is critical for the Microsoft Store and Windows10 apps. Ugh. What a mess and a waste of time.

Hopefully, others won't have to suffer as much.

<soapbox>

The more I use the Xbox app to play games - the less I like it. I guess if you want the same experience as an Xbox user for playing games - then it's no change - but for PC Gaming where you can mod a game - it's impossible - and the DRM/permissions they
put on these folders are just insane. At least I know never to buy a game from the Microsoft store and I'll just use the GamePass to try all the available games and buy them when my subscription expires from a different store. So there's that.

</soapbox>

Comment: Someone posted a review that included a solution to change the preferred GPU from auto to high performance. That option is only available for using NVIDIA's power-saving GPU technology (or laptops). That might help some folks, but it didn't apply
to me.

nVidia Control Panel info

(3D Settings - Manage 3D Settings - Reference - Manage 3D Settings)

I'll try that, except that now after I restarted it looks like the app didn't uninstall correctly. The folder exists in the directory and because of the DRM permissions with this app - so when I try to install it - it just blinks. The app thinks it's already
downloaded, but still displays the "Install" button - because it's not.

So now this is back to the Xbox app.

(I have a feeling I'm going to hate the game anyway - but like a bad movie, I'm going to see this through to the end)

Update:

Same result, same crash. Opened a ticket with BethSoft, but nobody human has responded yet. Their initial response points to a generic troubleshooting set of steps and asks for a Diagnostic Report that's generated from the Bethesda Game launcher. So we'll
see how long it takes for someone to take a look and respond.

One thing I did notice in the crash report was that it referenced the following:

C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\BethesdaSoftworks.RAGE2-PC_1.0.13.0_x64__3275kfvn8vcwc\RAGE2.exe

All my games are being installed to a different drive, not the C:\ - one can only hope it's able to understand symbolic links and doesn't actually require installation to the system drive.

More to follow....