Installation/download problem

I purchased Flight simulator 2020 (Standard version) on 30th Sept 2020.

It's been brilliant until about 3 weeks ago when an automatic update of the virtual reality portal

failed. Following the online advice I found windows update was also stuck.

After days of trying a variety of online advice - including microsoft site, using sfc /scannow and

the various DISM commands I tried to reset Windows. This also failed. Eventually I downloaded a

Windows 11 ISO and reinstalled from that - success but lost my apps. After installing the 10 DVDs

for Flight simulator 2020 I find the Key is 'already redeemed'. Microsoft help pages advise me to

go to the Microsoft store, find m Flightsim in the list and click on it, all will be fine - except

it isn't in the list! completely stuck now I bite the bullet and purchase a new copy from the Microsoft

which sticks at 1.88GB and the DOWNLOAD button changes to PLAY, nothing happens when clicking on this.

I now own 2 copies of Flightsimulator 2020 and can't play!

 

Win 11 64bit

Intel Core i9-10900K

3.70 gigahertz

32gb ram

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090

Have you tried the steps in the troubleshooting guide on the official website:

https://flightsimulator.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360017701559-Microsoft-Store-This-code-has-already-been-redeemed-error-message

Thank you, yes.

It’s possible that your Xbox account isn’t linked to your Microsoft account for some reason.

 

What happens is that the Xbox account ‘credentials’ on your PC can become corrupted and then the sim won’t launch or install updates.

 

The fix for this is to delete your existing Xbox credentials, reboot your PC, re-launch the Xbox app (make sure you’ve updated to the latest version in MS Store) sign in and then launch MSFS from the Xbox app.

 

Here’s how to do it:

 

Type “credential” into the search window on your taskbar and select “Credential Manager” from the list.

 

Click on the Windows Credentials heading.

 

Click on each entry beginning with ”XblGrts|” and select Remove in the drop-down menu.

 

DON’T DELETE ANYTHING ELSE!

 

Reboot your PC, launch the Xbox app and sign in, then launch MSFS from the Xbox app game library.

Thank you so much for the time and effort you put into this answer. After a quick check, the Xbox and Microsoft accounts are linked. I have also contacted Microsoft directly and, after working through the list they provided (many of which I already tried) it turned out to be the reinstallation of Windows 11 setting my time/date region incorrectly. My PC showed the correct time and date so I thought it was ok, but looking a little deeper the correct (London) region had not been set. Anyway, I'm very happy to have my sim back, just have to wait for my awful connection speed to get all the updates. Thanks again, it really is appreciated. :) John. Edited December 3, 2022 by Johntheplumber
clarity