Well I am so fed up with this FS download/install/activation nonsense.
Fired up Flight SIm and saw with in trepidation a compulsory update.nd
Did a Windows Update check. Allowed it to download 2 Windows patches,
Into Microsoft Store.  Back to square one. Flight Sim just sits there and does nothing but give a different error.
Tried various troubleshooting steps. No luck. Re-opened the zendesk ticket. No reply as yet.

 

• Are you installing your sim to the C drive, or to an alternate?
• If you are installing it to the C drive, how much space do you have available before installation?
• Are you having any trouble signing into msfs flight Sim website?
• Do you have any trouble signing into your Microsoft Windows account?

Edited March 3, 20215 yr by HiFlyer

6 hours ago, pwfsav said:

Well I am so fed up with this FS download/install/activation nonsense.
Fired up Flight SIm and saw with in trepidation a compulsory update.nd
Did a Windows Update check. Allowed it to download 2 Windows patches,
Into Microsoft Store.  Back to square one. Flight Sim just sits there and does nothing but give a different error.
Tried various troubleshooting steps. No luck. Re-opened the zendesk ticket. No reply as yet.

 

I tried your original fix, earlier in this thread, using my local account to login to Windows and I was able to download the sim and re-install.  Are you still logging in using your local account and then trying to start the sim?  You will still need to login to MS/gamepass to get the sim to load. 

On 2/22/2021 at 12:05 PM, Bobsk8 said:

Why on earth are people reinstalling their OS when they have a problem with an application?   I have never heard of this fixing anything. ?????

it's called panic 🥵

bs

To answer some of the questions

To HiFlyer

• Are you installing your sim to the C drive, or to an alternate?  C drive
• If you are installing it to the C drive, how much space do you have available before installation? 910GB
• Are you having any trouble signing into msfs flight Sim website?  If the website is https://www.flightsimulator.com/ I can login hthere no problem
• Do you have any trouble signing into your Microsoft Windows account? No

To Sabre57

I've done a re-install again (sorry Bobsk8) and this time let it use my Microsoft account and not a local account at all as my WIndows login
Once Windows updates were compete, into the Store and no problems - SIm downloaded fine. But will only know if it makes a difference
when a new update comes along as my previous attempt was fine at the beginning too.
As windows updates ok and all the other things in MS Store download fine, it seems it is somehow related to the authentication of account/DRM or something in this area.

I feel bad for the original poster.  This is exactly what happened to me.  My system failed during a mandatory update and forevermore locked me out of my original Microsoft store installation.  I was able to reload the program but because I didn't know the xbox user credentials nor remember the original path for the installation, my flight sim system would work but never correctly.  I wrote note after note to zendesk, xbox, and microsoft support with zero success. 

I finally stopped all my flopping around, started again with a clean operating system,  Bought the sim game (again) through Steam and everything has been fine since then.  I'm not mad at Microsoft or Xbox. I understand they're trying to protect this excellent sim from being hacked or stolen, but for the average computer user, there are sure a lot of speed bumps and pitfalls to watch out for.

 But you haven't done anything wrong Anitelite. You shouldn't have to buy it again.  Appalling support. 

Edited March 4, 20215 yr by bobcat999

That's true.  But I was so excited to get it that didn't I factor in the necessity to have not only a valid microsoft account, but also an xbox account and a clear path for the installation.  I assumed that because I had a copy of the initial transaction that would always be my starting point for reinstallation.  That was a blunder on my part. 

anitelite - Interesting you say that buying via steam fixed your problem. That is my last resort and use a completely different MS account. But I would severely begrudge giving them any more money.

Zendesk haven't replied for 4 days now. Very poor.

Hello PW.....I'll try to make my experience brief and perhaps you can benefit in some way.

I bought the program from the ms store not understanding that this is a "layered" program.  So I downloaded the 11G program and began to follow the winding road toward final operation.  I made two immediate "mistakes"   1) I didn't write down my xbox credentials and 2) didn't write down the specific installation path of where the program ended up on my computer.  All was well until the 2nd large update occurred.  Half way through the download of the update, my power supply/cable connection/hardware fault stopped the update dead in its tracks.  I cleaned fans, checked cables, restarted the computer and everything seemed to be ok.  Except for the download.  I couldn't make the download resume.  So I figure no problem...I know what to do, I'll remove the program, reinstall it and all will be well.  And that's what I did.  And when the computer finished the huge download and I started the sim, I had only 2 planes.  Some suggested going into the settings and just "adding" them in from the content manager but I felt something was wrong.  And the wrong showed up when I tried to use the cockpit view shortcut settings or even the standard rotational shortcuts.  They were completely corrupted.  And so the calls and chats to support started.  Took me a while to understand that this was a "microsoft/xbox/asobo" program with each entity having its own layers of security.  And since I didn't know the original xbox credentials or installation path, I went to step 2.  I installed a new clean drive, installed Steam and purchased the game through Steam.  And I followed every default Steam used and wrote down the NEW Xbox identity that was passed on from the new installation.  That took care of the problem.   Now the sim is back with all the planes and clean shortcuts.  Incidentally I went back to Microsoft and explained what happened and asked for a refund since I bought the same program twice, but Microsoft refused to even consider it.  I'm not happy that I had to purchase the sim twice, but at least I'm back where I first started with a complete verified installation.

I was pretty hot about the double purchase at first, but I've bought 100's of dollars of microsoft operating systems and related programs that are now useless so I got over the $ 60.00 cost.  But I think this deal about "report it to zendesk" is a complete dodge.  While I was struggling with my issues I was repeatedly handed off from Microsoft to Xbox and back and forth.  And at no time did I get the sense that any of the support people had a full understanding of the issue or how to really be of help. 

 

 

For what its worth I can relate my nightmare.

My MSFS (and all other simulators) are on the E drive (including the core MSFS files).  I purchased a larger 2GB SSD with the intention of making that the E drive instead and thought you could simply copy all of the files across from my old E to the new E (as you can do with DCS, P5D, Xplane etc) and I have done may times before. I temporarily renamed the old E to W and then tried to copy everything across to the new E. It worked for everything except MSFS.

I tried to get around the problem with an MSFS reinstall by uninstalling and deleting everything first it but you have huge difficulty removing some of the old core files even by taking control of them in Windows. I had to boot on to a Ubuntu pendrive to delete them. After that there is no way it would start a full reinstall of MSFS from the store. It just created a couple of small files on the E drive and then stopped. No amount of signing in and out of the Store, Xbox etc would fix it.

I made many phone calls to MS who were pretty useless and they eventually told be to contact the Xbox team who were equally useless. (That involved a guy remotely looking at various files around my system that weren't even related to MSFS).

Fortunately I take monthly images of my C, E and F drives using a freeware disc back up tool (you can do it in Win 10 too). After a bit of partiton tweaking I installed a month old version of eveything on those drives and recovered MSFS which I could then update to the current version.

Hopefully that story will help someone thinking of doing similar. I am sure there is an easier way.

 

Thanks to both  Anitelite and DescendDescend for your responses.

All our problems sound in the same area and have a similar signature - terrible/no support from Microsoft, being passed round Microsoft/Xbox as they don't seem to know/care. MS support on the phone, I believe once they ran out of ideas, just hung up on me. I will certainly push for a refund if I need to go the Steam route.

Edit:

I just got a response from Zendesk. A canned answer about how SIM Update III was available with new liveries and improved performance. Great if you can play the game. Incredibly annoying that they are not reading any of the messages you send.
So tried to install it. Yep what a shocker.....  I can't install it. Just gives an error. Back to Square One.

Edited March 9, 20215 yr by pwfsav