Can't install games from windows store on external drive

[Slazeus]

So to quickly give a run down of my situation. 

 

I had to re-install windows. I had all of my windows 10 games installed on my 6TB external hdd.

After re-installation my games won't let me re-install them there as "apps from another device were already there and need to be deleted first". 

Attempting to delete the WindowsApps folder on the external hdd is where my issue lies here:

 

When I try to delete the folder I get this error:

 

 

At this point it doesn't matter if I choose try again or skip both result in a prompt for admin permission (which I provide). 

 

After that the same error comes up again and if you click try again or skip it will then come up with this permission prompt (from myself):

 

 

At this point selecting try again will just bring up the same folder access denied screen creating a loop until cancel is selected. 

 

I'll note that the SLAZPUTER\guita account it mentions is my account and the only one logged in on my computer. 

 

Aswell as that my account both has ownership of the folder and has full controll permissions:

 

 

Even if I were to try and change any permissions (even though I shouldn't need to) I then get this error pop up for every folder in there (here is one of the pop ups):

 

 

After spending a while googling this all I could find were numerous posts explaining how to change the permissions I already should have or suggestions to install the games on a different drive or to format this one.

 

I cannot install them on another drive because the only other drive is my C drive which isn't big enough to have games on. 

 

I also cannot format the external drive to get rid of the folder as there around 3Tb of other important data on it and I have nowhere else with anything close to that capacity to back it up onto first.

 

 

I don't know what options are left to me here but any and all suggestions are more than welcome.

 

 

Thanks for reading.

 

 

-Slaz-

 

[Slazeus]

Ok, so after hours of trial and error I managed to get rid of the folder and thought I'd update this post with my solution.

 

So I previously tried this but while I was booted into windows and I still had permission/access issues so I rebooted into command prompt to avert the permissions issue and managed to navigate to the folder (cd /d *    where * is the folder/file location) and display the drives directory with: dir /x

 

I was then able to delete the folder without being denied access with the following command line:

 

rmdir /q/s *  (where * is the name of the folder/file you wish to delete).

 

Everything works fine now and I can now re-install my game pass games with no issue.

 

**WARNING**

DO NOT use this solution on your default WindowsApps location unless you are completely sure it isn't used anymore.

Doing so may have damaging effects on reliant programs and cause additional problems on your system.