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windows 10 - How can I free up space taken up by an incomplete Microsoft Store download?


Yesterday, I purchased a game (The Outer Worlds) via the Microsoft Store. I began downloading and installing it via the UI. At the beginning of this process, I was informed that I'd need some relatively large amount of free space (about 24 GB). That was fine, I had 32 GB free on my C: drive, so I clicked OK and started downloading.


The download was very large and I was unable to finish it that night. I clicked "pause" and shut down my computer, expecting the download to resume when I re-opened the Microsoft Store UI (the same way that, say, Steam will resume an interrupted download). This didn't happen. Whoops!


Instead, I'm now prompted to install The Outer Worlds fresh, with no acknowledgement that I've already partially downloaded it. More worryingly, the amount of free space detected by Windows on my C: drive is now much lower.


I'm guessing that the space allocated for my first attempt at downloading the game is still reserved, but I've been unable to find any files or folders with names related to "outer worlds" or "private division" (the name of the game's publisher) in a search of my C: drive via Windows Explorer. It's also not available as an option to uninstall in Windows' "Add or Remove Programs" screen.


How can I free up this space that's reserved by a failed download from the Microsoft Store? Does it store its download files in a specific location that's accessible to me? Will any disk cleanup utilities take care of it for me?



Answer



Found the solution. Steps I used to fix this:



  1. Open the C:\Program Files\WindowsApps folder, which is where the Windows Store puts its downloads. The WindowsApps folder isn't permissioned to normal users, so this has to be done using some utility that's being run as administrator (either a command prompt window, or some other file manager like 7zip; h/t ManSamVampire for the 7zip suggestion). DO NOT assign ownership of the WindowsApps folder to your own user account to gain access to it, as doing so will cause major problems and can't be easily undone (h/t Ramhound's answer for this warning).

  2. Sort the subfolders inside WindowsApps by the date they were last modified; this will let you easily find the folders that have recently had new stuff put into them.

  3. In my case, the offending subfolder was called MSIXVC, which is apparently a type of installer used by the Windows Store. Inside, I had an anomalous 37GB file created last night with no file extension, called "8BBF2763-A1C6-4F1B-96CA-B79DD5FDA4EE". Given that this file was enormous, created at the right time, and in a subfolder suggesting it was an installer, I concluded that this was the droid I was looking for.

  4. From within your run-as-administrator utility, delete the offending file. I deleted the ginormous, bafflingly-named file from the MSIXVC folder, and lo and behold I had all my disk space back!


Now redownloading and installing Outer Worlds. This time I'll know better than to turn off my computer partway through.


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