Locating app games on a new install of Windows 10?

[MatthewScott]

Hello,
Basically I had to swap motherboards recently so I decided to do a fresh install of Windows 10.
I have Gears of War saved onto my storage drive as I'm only using a 250gb SSD for Windows so I didn't want to put it there.
I can still see the download for Gears of War 4 in my storage drive but can't launch it or find a way for the store to locate/detect it.
Is there any way around this or is this a flaw with the Windows store? - Don't really want to have to download 73 gb's for Gears again if I don't need to.
Cheers.

 

[ss202sl]

It has to be installed again. You may be able to use the existing files, but it has to be installed to the new OS.

 

[MatthewScott]

Hello,

I never installed it to the OS in the first place, all the files are located on a separate drive. With stuff like Overwatch and Steam games I can just locate the games without needing to re-download them again. I was just wondering if this was possible with UWP games in my circumstances. Does it place something on the OS that is 100% required for launching the game?

 

[boosted1g]

What you have to understand is that even though you installed it to a diferent drive, there are files and registry keys that had to be written to the OS for it to work correctly.

Now that you wiped that OS and installed a new one, those files and keys are no longer, thus you have to reinstall the game.

You can lookup each individual game and see how to save your data.