FS2020 not starting anymore due to Microsoft Gaming Software

thydney19709200 · May 28, 2021, 10:50pm

Just wanted starting a flight with FS2020 and realized that I have bigger problems with the installation or a Microsoft store App named Microsoft Gaming Services. Whenever I try to start FS2020 I get directly forwarded in to Miocrosoft Store and into Microsoft Gaming Service. There is an update ready for install which fails at around 90% which is surprising me.

The Update procedure fails with errorcode 0x80073D2

Curently Windows 10 Pro 21H1 is installed.

I don’t know whats happened and I have absolutely no idea how to get this issue solved. Fact is, I can’t using FS2020 anymore and it will not starting up. Until yesterday night everything worked properly and I did a great flight with FS2020. This drives me mad honestly and I can’t understand why this can happen. If somebody has fix to get everythiong working again I^m really grateful for any support into this.

Many thanks and looking forward hearing from you.

thydney19709200 · May 28, 2021, 11:33pm

After some web research I found this article solving the issue and FS starting up again.

Anyone having this issue, after hours of frustration with this, finally have it working.

Do not, as you may be advised reformat and clean install Windows as its not necessary, as are most of the possible solutions that I have seen in various posts.

The main issue with Gaming Services is keys in the registry including ghost service entries in the registry, there is a version mismatch, if you ever get this error no matter what you try as long as they are there it will never install, thereby rendering your Game Pass Ultimate experience virtually useless.

I first got this error “0x00000001”, I then reset Gaming Services, that then caused another error “0x80073D26”, that’s when I found the services in task manager which were effectively ghost entries doing nothing.

Firstly I reset Gaming Services, then proceeded with the following:

Go to C:\Program Files\WindowsApps find 2 gaming services folders, take ownership and delete.
Open RegEdit as an administrator and delete the following:

Keys.

[HKEY_USERS.DEFAULT\Software\Classes\Local Settings\MrtCache\C:%5CProgram Files%5CWindowsApps%5CMicrosoft.GamingServices_2.45.11001.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe%5Cresources.pri]

[HKEY_USERS.DEFAULT\Software\Classes\Local Settings\MrtCache\C:%5CProgram Files%5CWindowsApps%5CMicrosoft.Gamingservices_2.45.11001.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe%5Cresources.pri\1d6937194966bce]

Services.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\GamingServices]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\GamingServicesNet]

The version numbers may be different depending on what you have installed.

Restart your PC.
Once restarted open Microsoft Store find Gaming Services and install, it will now work.

Hope this helps.

Microsoft however your updating or installing gaming services, it has the potential to fail, if it fails the user is stuffed, took me hours to resolve this, the only advice I had was to reset various apps or to reformat and clean install, which for the majority of users is not an option, fix it.