Why is my game stuck on preparing

Hello, first it's a pleasure to be able to help you today.

My name is welcome to the community.

Hello Acer, you mention that it has been like this for a few hours, are you able to close the application, have you tried any procedure on the PC?

Try to close the app through the Windows file manager.

Press CTRL-ALT-DEL and access the file manager to close the application and then follow the procedures below.

See which version of Windows 10 you have

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/see...

Updates are often seen as optional.

If you haven't updated yet, click the link below, update, and make all subsequent security updates.

Download Windows 10

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-downlo...

Download Windows 11

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-downlo...

Also, make sure all Xbox Apps are up to date in the store, and make sure you have the Xbox Companion App installed, it works with the Xbox App.

Is the download stuck at 0%? Only preparing?

Hi, JulianQV! I appreciate you trying the steps. Have you tried installing your games using a different drive?

Go to Windows settings

-> Storage settings

-> Change where new content is saved

Then change "New apps will save to:"

-> to C

-> and then back to the other drive.

You can also try deleting all files in C:\Users\User_name\AppData\Local\Packages \Microsoft.WindowsStore_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache, and then reboot your pc.

Note: This will only rescan all your downloaded files in just a few minutes then will let you launch the game.

Restart your PC to make sure all changes are saved. If it still persists you may also want to try performing a clean boot: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-t....

I have found my own answer to my issue. It seems to have been caused by the store getting stuck at some download % and unable to progress, for whatever reason. I couldn't cancel the download nor delete the folders in the install location as they were "in use". So, I managed to start in safe mode and then delete the folders. This caused the store to then start the download over from scratch, with no issues so far.

Hi, Thanks for the reply, Kim. Unfortunately this did not work