In Vista and 7 the Game Explorer automatically detects and adds most older (pre-vista) 3rd party games to the list. It even downloads box art and stuff like that. In 8.1 it doesn't seem to be case anymore. Only newer games that install themselves into it are listed, old ones aren't. Is there a way to add the old functionality back?
Just curious: Isn't the Game Explorer based on the Windows Explorer? There quite some changes with Windows 8 explorer compare to the one from W7 and that's why the Game Explorer didn't detect those games anymore?! I'm not a gamer just play with Flight Sim. and just think that may could be a possibility. Had you checked with the developer website and what they say?
Yes, it's a special folder of explorer. The autodetection is developer independent, it only detects certain game exe files (based on a built-in database) and adds them automatically. At least under vista and 7. Yes, you can access it using 2 methods. #1: Type "shell:games" into the address bar of any explorer window. #2: You can see a "games" category on the all apps view. That's the metro representation of the game explorer, just like other categories are representations of start menu folders.