so i have Microsoft game pass ultimate, always paid everything else fine…had msfs installed for about a year, used to play a lot but not played in 2 months, went to play it and … its gone !
Everything… all folders, mods everything !
on gamepass it says i can install it …but although the game has disappeared… it has not freed up the space…so i dont have enough space… i tried system restore but it only want back a month, so no change …
the only difference i notice is that gamepass now calls it "Microsoft Flight Simulator: Standard Game of the Year Edition " ???
tell me that Microsoft hasnt uninstalled my game ?
ive restarted several times, everything else is fine, the only difference i made was to install Forza 5 about a week ago…but thats on a different drive…
ALL other games are fine
WHY has this happened ?? any ideas appreciated.
BTW it was installed on C:
i recently “upgraded” to gamepass ultimate from standard,
is THIS Microsofts way of thanking me ??
If it hasn’t freed the space, you should have the files? Default location for MS Store is C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe
If you have that folder and it’s large, you should be able to just reinstall the game (about 1 GB) and then update the files that have changed in the past two months, then play.
thanks but i can get to C:\Users\rob12\AppData\Local\Packages there are Microsoft packages but not Flight simulator… so it must have deleted it ? all i know is, the drive is full…
I have by chance ordered a 2Tb sdd in the black friday sales but royal mail have been holding it hostage for some reason in my mail center since the 27th…
Are you sure the space isn’t freed at least, in that case? You could run a tree analyzer to check what’s taking up space where.
I really like WizTree that I found just a few days ago. Faster and more correct than the others I’ve used previously (WinDirStat, TreeStat Free).
should probably mention im a PC tech of over 25 years so, no, it definitely didnt free up space, ( not bragging, just clarifying) it is possible i filled it with something else, i install a lot of games, however i never install in the main system directory. some automated installers will still try and use the system directory to install, I noticed Oculus store often does that, i have 4 SSD drives, MSFS was installed when i first built this system, at the time there was only 1 M.2 SSD ( the system C: ) thats why its was installed on C:
I checked the Xbox App on PC and it is currently not in my PC Gamepass Games either.
I purchased it, so it doesn’t bother me, but maybe that helps you.
I don’t follow the coming and going of Gamepass titles.
Either they made a mistake or it’s just no longer in Gamepass on PC or they messed up something with the new GOTY version. No idea.
oh its there, i could reinstall it…IF i had space… thing is it uninstalled itself… and looking online, MSFS does this a LOT , its just not good enough.
The installation process on PC is the worst of any software I ever encountered, no lying about that.
And I remeber having to install Windows 95 from 25 floppy disks for 5 hours, lol.
It’s definitely the last PC game I buy in MS Store ever.
All my native Steam games on PC and Xbox games are so easy to manage in comparison. Even MSFS on XBox updates in standby mode in the background…
agreed, i figured if i faithfully paid for gamepass every month, that id be entitled to play its games whenever i wanted to… apparently not …gamepass is definitely not what it advertises ., then, i have read of people who bought MSFS of avoid problems like mine, yet it has still happened … i think the only way is to buy it via Steam. more money for Microsoft…theres a reason Bill got so rich.
So, this will not solve your current problem, BUT…if you run into the game disappearing in the future, setting your packages directory outside of the “stock” location will protect them from being deleted by the XBox app, Windows, or whatever.
During install, when the directory window for updates pops up, just use another location.
I create a folder called Flight Sim right in the c: directory. So the install path is literally just c:/flight sim
The Community and Official folders install inside that Flight Sim folder, and will not be affected by the ~2GB core download from Game Pass, or the MS Store, or wherever you install from. If the core download is corrupted, deleted, or just straight dissappears, the ~150GB of packages will stay put. It makes for a very fast reinstall.
A nice side effect of setting your own shallow directory is that you don’t have to dig trough 7 layers of hell trying to find the Community folder if you want to install or delete 3rd party content, or tweak aircraft cfg. files.
For the aircraft that have the ability to tweak the flight model, I like to put in basic weight and station loads in the cfg. files to set real-world weight and balance info for known aircraft to reflect flying with my family on board, so I’m in those quite a bit.
I hear you but, as i mentioned, i was installed to the default C: directory as i only had one SSD installed at the time, everything was 100% stock, also, i had a shortcut to the community folder for ease of adding mods, that is now a “dead link”… (asking me if i want to delete as it goes nowhere) so yes it, whatever happened, deleted that too.
i really should not have to do as you suggest, not sure it would have helped it or not.
I didn’t say anything about putting it on a different drive. Just in a different folder, which you create, on your drive.
The reason your community folder shortcut is now dead is because when the game was uninstalled, it took that directory with it.
Doing what I told you prevents that directory from getting deleted in the event the game gets uninstalled again.
Whether or not you feel you should have to do it is irrelevant at this point, since you are going to be doing a full reinstall now either way. Whether you want to prevent it from happening again in the future is your choice.
yes ok, i re-read it sorry, ok i will do that when reinstall it , thanks
i will be reinstalling it on a new SSD…if Royal mail ever release it from its current hostage situation…its been sitting in my cities mail center since the 27th nov… for absolutely no reason.
I found my (store purchased) MSFS to be „deleted“ once, the folders were gone etc. I wasn’t able to reinstall the sim (some weird error message) so I removed the gaming services from my registry and let them install again via the store, suddenly all my MSFS folders were back in place. Windows is crp but you just have to be as crppy yourself to deal with it and you‘re fine… smirk
TBH i just dont see why its a problem that exists, with 35 years of using computers under my belt, i have never seen a huge program like this deleting itself without any input or warning etc…something tells me it is a way of microsoft to " get you hooked" on MSFS then force you to re buy it from steam or on disc to circumvent this problem.
strangely… no other gamepass games have done this.
and in fact, this is the second time MSFS has deleted itself from my system, it did it after only about 2 weeks of having it a year or so ago.
Are you using a PC cleanup/optimizing tool, like AVG tune-up, or something similar? Something that deletes old files, unused programs, registry entries, cookies, etc?
