Scripting libreoffice after microsoft store purchase windows 11

I have used the free version of libreoffice for years, downloaded and directly installed. I also have scripts which automate some tasks using the soffice.exe binary. I recently purchased libreoffice from the Microsoft store and got Version 24.2. But now, I can’t find the exe files to use in my scripting. They seem to not be on the system. Where are they? or how can i script them from the command line as I was able to do using the much older free version.

This is a question of how MS stores its “WindowsApps” (MSIX) packaged applications. It’s far from trivial.

The way to discover the .exe placement can be:

  1. Run LibreOffice;
  2. Open Task Manager;
  3. On its Processes pane, locate “LibreOffice”;
  4. Expand its node, to see (maybe several) inner LibreOffice element(s);
  5. Right-click an inner element, and choose “Open file location”.

You will discover, that the answer is
C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\TheDocumentFoundation.LibreOfficeMSIX_24.2.7.0_x64__vv1d32z7hj13r\VFS\ProgramFilesX64\LibreOffice\program

and some of the intermediate directories are protected and unreachable.