Unfortunately no success and after much hassles even trying to also gain permission to delete files I’ve removed everything and doing a new installation.
Thank to those that provided some advice.
1 Like
I gave up and bought it on Steam. (I cancelled my XBox subscription too, fed up with all the issues).
If you rename your FS2020 (or what ever you called it) install folder to FS2020_old before you uninstall it on the Windows Store you can use it on the Steam version. Once uninstalled rename it back to FS2020.
When Steam finishes the 550MB initial install, launch the game, point it to your FS2020 folder and let it start the update and exit the game.
Go into your FS2020 folder and delete the new Steam folder and rename the gameapp or appstore folder (sorry I can’t remember what it was called) inside the FS2020 folder to Steam and restart the game. Then you only have to download the 8GB patch and NOT the whole game.
Hope this helps someone!
2 Likes
Do they think we have 1000 hours free time to fix this again and again !!!
Update 1: Not able to uninstall or update. Well done MS ! Thx for broken it !
Update 2:
I deinstalled MSFS2020…my luck I have the core content on my 2nd drive NVME.
So reinstall and choose core content on my 2nd drive save 110GB so only patch at about 8GB.
But deinstall was not visible 3-4 hours in the store and not in the app folder of win10.
Also MSFS2020 was not visible in the app folder of win 10 anymore.
Nightmare patch day 
1 Like
Cross posting from a similar thread here: For those experiencing the inability to update / install from MS Store: I have similar symptoms but a different error code (0x80070424). The various MS Store and Windows Update resets and fixes don’t make a difference for me. The curious thing is that windows update and any other store items download / update just fine, it’s ONLY Flight Simulator that is throwing the error for me. I’m reluctant to take the next step (windows repair or even reinstall) as that seems a pretty drastic step to take when the source of the issue isn’t 100% clear.
2 Likes
Do you have MSFS installed in the default location?
I wonder if this issue, when it pops up effects both default and custom folder installations…\
As I mentioned I deleted everything and installed from scratch plus Japan and while it took a bit over 2 hours everything is working perfectly with about 20 items added to the Community folder, mostly sceneries and the excellent CJ4 mod, I haven’t bothered with liveries yet. My log is current and all control mappings etc appeared as per previous installation which is one bonus from having this stored on the cloud.
Good point, I have it installed on a secondary drive. No issues installing it on release though, and I’ve managed to update the previous patches no issue. It’s a weird one that’s for sure.
Did you follow any particular guide for deletion of everything? I have a feeling there might be some elements left over after uninstalling that could be potentially causing an issue, but because the error message points to other problems that I don’t seem to actually have, it’s hard to track it down…
I tried and tried with the same error, but eventually I solved it with an overwrite install of Windows 10.
Before the Windows 10 overwrite installation, I formatted the SSD drive (F:) where MSFS2020 was installed.
For those who encounter this issue in the future: My solution was to uninstall and reinstall the microsoft store.
While this is not endorsed by MS, following these instructions accurately resulted in me being able to download MSFS2020 and reinstall.
Cheers
1 Like
Sadly didn’t work for me, now I just get a different error message XD
Thanks zkmja, this solved for me too!
1 Like
For me, I believe using a different drive to install to fixed my issue. But I didn’t have an extra drive laying around so I worked around it by formatting the drive where I let the base app install previously before the update issue appeared, and assigning a different drive letter than used previously before reinstalling.
I’m guessing it was some sort of registry issue involving either the drive letter of the entire path (X:\WindowsApps\etcetc). After trying all sorts of resets and scans and reinstalling the product, I kept getting the same error which prevented me to reinstall, even after formatting the drive I was using previously. Changing the drive letter before doing a clean install of the base app using XBOX app finally fixed it.
You can still rename the content folder (the ~100GB data folder) if you let that install on a different drive, or just move it to another drive before the format if you must to prevent it being deleted when you uninstall any corrupted or non updated versions of the base app. Finally, during the first startup after reinstall, point to that folder for the ‘update process’ and you shouldn’t need to download and decompress all those files again. In contrast to installing the Flight Simulator base application on a completely other drive, the content files (packages) can be on a previously used disk or drive letter for this to work.
Edit: If you don’t have multiple drives but enough space, you might want to check out how to attach a Virtual HD (VHDX) using the Disk partition tool built into Windows 10. You’d need to set the size to 160GB or more in order to achieve the above. When formatting the VHD, leave the default allocation size or pick 4096, and choose a drive letter you have not used before.
Hope this helps for someone.
I too had this problem with the latest patch. The WindowsApp bit broke. ‘Luckily’ for me I had both the store app and FS2020 itself on my H: drive. I tried the various suggestions in the FAQ for fixing this but to no avail. Even the uninstall still gave the same error and never did the H:\WindowsApps folder seem to get deleted. Like @RedPandaNLnms I copied off the FS2020 folder and reformatted the H: drive. I didn’t need to change drive letters as the store app would install again. I copied FS2020 back and then only had the 2.whatever GB patch to download.
Before the format I did try installing to another drive but that still failed so the install process was still looking at the broken H:\WindowsApp files.
1 Like
The newest update wouldn’t download for me either. I went to Zen Desk here and followed the procedure as outlined, tedious with several restarts, but it worked, and I learned a lot about Microsoft Store in the process: https://flightsimulator.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360015760660-Download-Installation-issues-Windows-Store-troubleshooting. Save this as a favorite to get back into quickly after each reboot.
1 Like
This is the same problem. I thought I would solve the problem by uninstalling and reinstalling flight simulator 2020. Nothing to do. Now I am without fs 2020. Please help us!!! I have paipd 180 Euros.
The registry edit fixed it for me. More than likely you’re installed to a different drive, and more than likely you have multiple registry entries for the Windowsapp folder for the same drive. You need to delete the one that points to an incorrect drive ID, per the links @TenPatrol provided.
Backup your registry first, just in case!
Use regedit, and go to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Appx\PackageVolumes\
You’ll see numbered subkeys
Type in cmd “mountvol” to know the correct drive ID for the drive you install to, and delete only the registry subkey that show the incorrect drive ID. You’ll see the info when you click on the subkey, it will show the drive letter and the drive ID.
3 Likes
This was the fix for me. Thanks!
Next time read carefully 
Worked for me too - thank you very much. I had two listing in the registry for my E: drive, where MSFS2020 is installed