Why can't you just make a simple app that works? Starfield mods broken, can't migrate game...

I'm not going to argue with you, I've shown you the rules, and told you that official mod support is coming in 2024.

2- Lack of effective DRM is a problem on many platforms, yes

I suggest that you create network drives on the other computers, and try the move command again. I haven't tried it personally, so I can't guarantee success. If you don't use the move process, the DRM keys will not be rewritten for its new home.

The terms of service forbids modifying games. Official mod support coming in 2024, but it will be limited to developer approved mods.

The DRM requires the cluster size for correct hashing

In Windows 11 go to Apps>Installed Apps then click the 3 dots next to the game and choose "move".

https://www.xbox.com/en-US/legal/community-standards#conduct

Note that these are community forums, you won't generally get answers from Microsoft employee's.

I was under the impression that all of the games on the Xbox App were encrypted, but, as it turns out, that's not the case. Indeed, to test this, I downloaded Fallout 4 and installed a texture mod that changed the textures of the stone and rocks in the game. I manually copied the textures into the Fallout 4 Data folder and it worked.

That is not to say other games can be modified as easily. In regards to Bethesda's RPG's I understand from a topic I've recently seen on Steam, that mods that involve script extenders don't work as they change the launching exe of the game.

Games such as Forza Horizon 5 can't be modified, and for good reason. However, games such MSF2020 can, as the main install folder is not encrypted. The main exe is encrypted (and there is zero reason to change this anyway).

The 4K limit is, as Sword has put it, to allow the encryption hashing for games that are encrypted.

These 15-20TB large drives are not exactly standard. I doubt very few user have such large drives to install games. Besides, SSD is now the optimum drive to run modern games now.

Starfield requires an SSD to run correctly. An SSD is listed in the minimum requirements. Mechanical hard drives, even the faster 10,000RPM ones won't run this game well.

- It's not an argument - you implied that part of the TOS "bans" modding, that's simply not true, and I'm not sure what you were trying to accomplish

There's no reason to prevent users changing files on disk for games they own, outside of cheat prevention - and this is a single player game, so that's a moot point. It may be helpful in preventing cheating, but other platforms have found other routes to achieve that protection - it is unacceptable that the technology stack in Xbox for Windows blanket blocks this from happening.

Additionally, few mods are "official" in any way, and almost none start out with approval or blessing from the developers. They start out because someone wants to do a thing. A thing they often can't do with Xbox for Windows!

- A DRM implementation that breaks basic functionality is a faulty DRM implementation. Microsoft needs to fix it.

- Unlike Steam, Xbox for Windows does not support or allow game installs on a network drive. Another side effect of the BROKEN and UNFINISHED storage and DRM mechanisms underlying the Xbox windows app.

What I'm really after is some genuine reasoning why it's done like this, other than saving face, after someone's novel idea made it half-baked into a supposedly production ready app. Because it's causing real problems, and nobody seems to have an answer as to what problems it's actually solving.

Either some hope that the storage system will genuinely be improved, arbitrary technical restrictions will be lifted, and problems like these will be fixed - or news that the dead horse will cease to be flogged, and that they're working to transition to standard filesystem storage.

1) Not true, and you disprove yourself in your own screenshot - as it says - "in games that do not allow modded content". That's a rule aimed at cheats for multiplayer games, quite rightly. Starfield specifically does "allow" modding, and the forthcoming modders toolbox just reaffirms that it is NOT "forbidden". It in no way excuses the technical failure on Microsoft's part to facilitate such modification to games on their platform.

2) The specific way Microsoft has chosen to implement the DRM - different to any other publishers platform - is THE PROBLEM, (tm). Not helpful.

3) That works to move a game from one drive to another on the same system where the games were installed. It does not work to move the game to another system over the LAN, or to retrieve games from a hard drive pulled from another system, or other such circumstances.