Praise Be you can remove STORE and all the other crap wrapped in Windows 10......Thank You. That has no business in the Corp Office computers. Just causes more headache for the Techs.

Actually, I had to uninstall and re-install the Contacts app this way because the tile was broken and its name wasn't correctly displayed in the settings. You can simply re-install apps by searching from them in the Windows Store.

On an unrelated note, I really wonder why you cannot uninstall the weather app. You can uninstall all other MSN apps, why not this one?

Already created batch files.....Love it.

I earlier came across a site with the same info to remove default apps from Win10: https://thomas.vanhoutte.be/miniblog/delete-windows-10-apps/

A bit down the list of comments is one from jon who says: "Unfortunately this doesn't actually uninstall the apps, it just hides it for the user that ran the command. If you create a new user and log in (say if you are on a domain) the apps you removed will be back and alive again!"

A bit further there is a suggestion from Dan: "How about someone come up with a quickie GUI that lists all of the packages and lets you select what packages to remove and to remove them from all users or just current user. Could have it also add apps back if you put a checkmark in the add app, if there is a way to pull them from the cached install files or from install DVD / Iso image…"

I wonder about jon's comment and whether anyone has created Dan's GUI idea... thoughts? Many thanks.

I just actually upgraded to the newest version of IObit Uninstaller v5.0.3.168, and they claim it can uninstall Windows 10 apps and it has the option. I verified and used it with voice recorder and it worked. All other apps I had previously uninstalled with the power shell option listed here.

Thanks, Chris! I was wondering how to get rid of the junk and now it's gone. Thanks so much for the great article.

Tried to execute this to get rid of Mail, but the Powershell screen just hangs on initialized. The MS Mail app has been showing a splash screen for the last 3 days - I wanted to delete and reinstall the app based on your article, but Powershell does nothing but hangs too on the Deployment Operations Progress. I let run for over 1/2 hour and still on the initialize prompt.

Any suggestions?

This PowerShell is much more valued then to install or uninstall apps only.I called notepad from this shell - with the name of host file from windows\system32\drivers\etc. And after editing it provides me to make simple save - to store my changes.No need administrator account. All-in-One is there.

Does anyone know which folder contains the shortcuts of these apps; the folder where start menu picks them from? Typically, contents of "All Apps" in start menu comes from two folders -

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\ProgramsC:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu

But in Windows 10, the default Microsoft apps that come pre-installed (News, Weather, People etc) or 3rd party apps that I install from the store, they don't have their shortcuts in these folders and yet they show up in "All apps" of start menu. Anyone knows the path to the folder from where these are populated in start menu?

As I may understand, all of them are here:C:\Program Files\WindowsApps

Windows Runtime apps are installed to the hidden %ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps system folder. Start's "All Apps" view presents the launchers for Windows Runtime apps from shell:::{4234d49b-0245-4df3-b780-3893943456e1} AKA shell:AppsFolder, a special system folder.

The launch shortcuts for old Windows API apps come from both%ProgramData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs and%AppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

This applies to Windows 8, 8.1, and 10.

I do not believe this works, as after I went through all this rigamarole -- including a restart -- the "uninstalled" apps still show up on my QuickLaunch, some of them now as "new" apps.

If anyone knows a way to permanently uninstall this crapware, I'd be happy to hear it.

@karen58

IObit Uninstaller 5

This is what I used and it works. I also personally use it to uninstall installed programs too.Once installed, on the left you will see a tab WIN MANAGER -- then WINDOWS APPS.To the right after selected you will see Windows Apps and also Third-Party Apps.Click on the Windows Apps and select which one you want removed.

You should add a note to the article that after this you will not have any Calculator application available to use.Unlike previous versions of Windows a Desktop Calculator app (calc.exe) is available, in Windows 10 calc.exe is just there for compatibility and it launches the Universal Calculator App.I don't know what the Windows 10 calc.exe does when the Universal Calculator App is removed but I would guess it either shows an error or does nothing.

shell:AppsFolder opened a window with all apps on my laptop. And I can't manipulate anything in that window either. What I was looking for is a way to put all those universal apps in a "Win Universal Apps" folder in the "All apps" menu of start menu; instead of all those apps being strewn across it.

Thanks, @Chris_RI'll give it a try!

It appears the reason for that is those are System Apss not User Apps.User Apps are stored in %ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps and System Apps are stored in %SystemRoot%\SystemApps.Interestingly the Settings App while a System App is still stored in %SystemRoot%\ImmersiveControlPanel as it was in Windows 8/8.1 instead of this new SystemApps location.

Important Note on folder %ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps: This folder is owned by TrustedInstaller and only specific users like TrustedInstaller and SYSTEM have full access to it. Administrators have read only access and Standard Users have no access to it.If you want to view the folder, it's best to use an elevated app like Command Prompt (As Administrator) instead of changing permissions as you be may weaking the security of installed user apps and/or preventing the Apps from running correctly requiring a reinstall of Windows to fix.

Edit:Looking at the Apps in the %SystemRoot%\SystemApps folder, it appears all of them make sense to be System Apps that can not be removed except for Microsoft Edge.I see no reason why Microsoft Edge shouldn't be a user app that can be uninstalled.Unlike Internet Explorer, no built-in or third-party program depends on Microsoft Edge to be installed.Considering Microsoft had lawsuits for bundling Internet Explorer in Windows, the fact that Windows 10 now includes two Web Browsers that can't be removed seems odd.

You can't do that. Microsoft intentionally developed it this way so that Windows Runtime apps follow the Windows User Experience Interaction Guidelines, which old Windows API apps constantly insist on ignoring.

Using folders for storing launch shortcuts of less than three apps in Start has always been a violation of the guidelines, even before Windows 8.

Create a product folder only if your product is a collection of individual programs (three or more), and users think of your product in terms of that collection.

Additionally, storing other types of shortcuts is also against the guidelines.

Don't clutter the Start menu with entries for uninstall, readme files, Help files, or links to Web sites. For more guidelines, see Start menu.

Source: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=2695

I'm not that disagreeing that users should have more control over this but Microsoft is only trying to prevent the clutter hell caused by old-style apps in their new-style apps.

The EdgeHTML engine superseedes the old MSHTML (Trident) engine from IE so apps that currently rely on MSHTML to render web content should consider migrating to EdgeHTML, or using a third-party engine. In the meantime, MSHTML will remain available alongside IE for legacy purposes.

The Internet Explorer frontend can be uninstalled. Edge's might be too in the future, since it's not as deeply ingrained in the OS as IE. But Edge is core to the OS functionality much like IE still is.

When I run those commands in PowerShell using my Administrator account, it gives me these red codes:

Screenshot.png1108x411 60.7 KB

Unfortunately, following this method did not uninstall the apps , as soon as you click on Windows you see all the apps to the right that you thought you removed.

Bummer

I'm less bothered about the presence of these "apps" than the fact that they mess up my start menu ( the all apps section that is).I like to be orgainsed. I don't want hundred of start menu items to scroll through, half of which I will only use from time to time. I want a start menu folder that contains office software. Another that has admin software. Or utilites, And so on. I don't want odd random apps in the list that are in alphabetical order because Microsoft has called it, for example, "convert pdf to documents" so it appears under "c" or whatever. I want to put things where I can find them without remembering some stupid name that I didn't choose. I want simplicity and order. Above all I want to be in charge of my own start menu.Under Win 7 there was no problem. ( or all the versions before that.Win 3.1 had nice little groups to put things in.) But the "Universal apps" are too universal. If I want do want them I still want them out of sight in a catagory until I need them.. So the Convert.... app will go into my " office " folder and so on.Anything I use often I can pin.

is there really no way to shift the calculator shortcut out of the rather full "c" list and into my utilities folder?Is this really too much to ask of Microsoft?

EDITThis is strange. I put my Libre Office links inside my Office start menu folder. But no matter what I did the Libre Office folder I'd deleted still sat in the start menu (under L of course) with the Libre Office links inside it. Why won't the go away? I deleted it. Why does it still appear when it isn't visible in the folder anymore?What were Microsoft thinking making this sort of thing happen?

Chris,

Thank you for posting the info on how to remove Windows pre-installed apps. I used it to remove Solitaire and Get Office and it worked great. One concern I had however was that it looked to me that if you wanted to put one app back on you had to put all of them back on. Are there individual commands to use to put an individual app back on that you can share with us?

"There’s no real advantage to doing this beyond decluttering your Start menu."I'm not quite sure what the antecedent reference is here, but this good article helped me stop something that was driving me nuts. Clicking on unusual file types in Windows Explorer caused my machine to try to go crazy cataloging thousands of music files for Groove Music. I have no interest in permitting Microsoft to catalog portions of my private information with a Metro App. BTW there is no way to remove Groove Music file type associations as far as I can figure out without following this process. Normal Groove Music file associations cannot be overridden from the Control Panel Default Associations with some of the music file types..

At least in Windows 8/8.1 to my knowledge removing the Apps didn't really make a difference.Except for live tiles the Apps didn't seem to do anything in the background.

Like the article author I also thought the same was true on Windows 10 but I found out a few days ago that it was not.On an older Dell laptop that was upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10 the CPU load caused by the Photos app going through all the files and folders in the Photos folder on my linux server made that the laptop so slow that it was nearly unusable.I found out this was the problem after I found the topic Runtimebroker.exe high cpu via a Google Search and read the last post in it.

That post said the solution was to remove the folder from the Pictures library but that would mean I wouldn't see the folder in File Explorer or Windows Live Photo Gallery (a program I hope Microsoft doesn't stop developing in favor of this new fairly useless "Photos" app).

I then remembered this article about removing apps so I removed the Photos app (and the Groove Music app just in case it decided to scan the music folder and take high cpu too) and now the laptop is usable again.

Go to shell:AppsFolder in File Explorer and create a desktop shortcut from there by using the context menu.

Cache issues but don't worry, it refreshes eventually. You can also restart the shell from the Task Manager by selecting Windows Explorer and clicking Restart to force the cache to update.

One has to be amused by statements like "Microsoft are trying to streamline...." or "declutter". Microsoft appear to have one objective and that is to capture users and make MS :Apps: exclusive user.I have tried to "Choose Default Apps by File Type" and in many instances the selection of alternatives to MS APPs (such as WMA) is totally ignored. I prefer VLC for movies for example but my selection is ignored. Older MS such as Office 2010 doesn't appear as an option - only the insidious Office 2016Man, have they lost the plot!!!

I used this to remove Windows 10 News. Tired of them promoting corrupt Hillary. Journalism is dead. I want unbiased articles, not propaganda trying to brainwash us into voting for the establishment who is controlled by banks, elite families, foreign governments, and special interests. I'm not surprised Microshaft is losing marketshare in desktop and mobile operating systems. Windows 8, 8.1, and Windows 10 are all terrible. Windows 7 was their last decent OS they will probably ever release.

I would just like to thank you.. This helped me greatly as i suffer from the current known spam issue with Skype. Now its gone and at least i can work on solving any threat to my system without continued spamming.

This is the first time I've dipped my toes into the murky waters of PowerShell commands, and I used Chris Hoffman's information to successfully remove Mail & Calendar app that was being temperamental, and People app which had completely given up the will to live. Like you, "dogman", my Powershell operation hung in the air for a long time, perhaps by more than your half hour. I went away and did something else. When I came back it had finished. The second one, for reasons I do not know, finished in a few minutes. Rather than use Chris's suggested PowerShell method to reinstate them (which appears to be an all-or-nothing affair) I just went to Store and reinstalled the apps from there, after which both functioned properly.

My remaining problem is that .. should I wish to do the same with the Store app (& Windows Diagnostics is frequently telling me its cache is probably damaged) .. once I've got rid of Store using PowerShell how the hell can I go to Store to reinstall it?!