First off, I purchased FS 2020 on Steam. Second, I never ever explicitly installed any “XBox app” for Windows 10 (21H1 - which I newly installed a couple of weeks ago, due to a new computer).
In fact, I just checked: when entering “xbox” in the start menu the only “hit” I get is: “Xbox Console Companion” (which must have been installed together with Windows 10 - in fact, I don’t think I ever launched the MS Store on this Windows 10 installation of mine).
When starting this app (for the first time!) it already announced with a message that there will be a new “Xbox App for Windows 10”, and even offers me a download button (which I did not click).
So whatever this Companion app does, I have never used it before. And I am pretty sure that I don’t have this new “Xbox App” installed either.
Steam offered me the update 4 minutes past the announced availability of the Word Update 6 (I am located in Switzerland, FWIW), and the subsequent mandatory in-game update download went extremely fast (compared to the last SU 5) - maybe because some (most?) users were having troubles initiating the MS Store download in the first place?
Also the optional in-game Marketplace updates went fast and smooth.
So what gives? Is this “XBox app” only required for the MS Store variant of FS 2020? Is it now “mandatory” (and what does it actually do) for MS Store users? Or was that just given as a “workaround” for the update issues specific to the MS Store itself?
I am also a Steam / MSFS license owner. We all use XBox for Windows accounts (our Gamertags on this forum in fact) to cross-connect our Steam Accounts to Microsoft Gaming Services. One of the earlier workarounds for Steam Users seeing strange behavior during updates / installs is to go to the XBox login page on the internet, and cycle logging out and logging back in to reset session state.
For MS Store users, it’s apparently a bit different. Simply logging into XBox for Windows on the MS Website isn’t enough. You must have an XBox app (there are several, not sure if one is enough or all are required) and you must be logged into that app for any MS Store Games to function correctly.
INSTALL THE XBOX APP
If you have purchased Microsoft Flight Simulator via the Microsoft Store or you redeemed the code on your Microsoft account, install the Xbox App.
Yes, I remember faintly having created an Xbox account, probably specifically for FS 2020 when I purchased and installed it back in August 2020 (I wouldn’t know why else I would have had an Xbox account - in fact, Mac user here ;))
The only issue I had with this Xbox account - that I remememer - was during some update, when FS 2020 asked me again to login with my Xbox account. And the login screen was not visible! I solved it my copying away the installation folder, re-installing the game, aborting the installation (download of packages), copying back the installation folder and resuming installation. The Xbox login screen was then visible.
I then realised that the problem was perhaps related to my native 5k screen resolution, and I run FS 2020 in fullscreen mode, but only at an 1080 resolution. I noticed that while FS 2020 GUI elements were properly scaled, “external dialogs” such as the Xbox login screen are not: they are rendered with a tiny font (that is, they do not take the Windows 200% scaling factor into account, or so it seems).
In short: I suspect that this Xbox login dialog was “centered” on my 5k screen, placing it outside of the visible screen area. Later I realised that simply putting FS 2020 into “windowed mode” would also solve this problem
Anyway, that was the only small issue that I remember with this Xbox account… since day 1 of FS 2020 (so every other update process always went smooth for me).
Okay, I understand. But is this a new requirement since WU 6? Or how come this is “all of a sudden” made as a recommendation to Microsoft Store users?
In any case, I am glad I decided for the Steam edition
hi, for my part with the MS store version, having struggled to SU 5 to have the update, and had as a solution of zendesk that does not work, I found the solution by myself that suits me, which also worked for the wu6 is to just uninstall the app from the store and reinstall, it takes me 15 seconds and need to install their app xbox.
A solution like any other
In short, we don’t really know yet. I suppose we’ll have an idea after the next update.
All I know myself is, I couldn’t get the update, I read on these esteemed forums advice to install Xbox, and hey presto.
It is not required. It does provide an alternate way to access the MS Windows Store, though, and so got recommended as a workaround for not seeing the update.
It’s only handy to keep you logged in for the next MSFS run. I don’t mind really. I regard this “XBox-app” as advertisement for gamepass things. It’s in there for marketing purposes. I close it when I see it..
Based on casual feedback from folks closer to the development process, this is not a new requirement. It may be that many users had a defunct copy of XBox App already installed, and it just needed to be refreshed. That’s the limit of what I’ve heard.
