Windows 10: Uninstall Apps in Windows 10

No problem. I learned a lot with Windows 10 after refreshing it for the 5th time.

Also forgot to say if you want the best photo viewer to me that is free use this.
FastStone Image Viewer - Powerful and Intuitive Photo Viewer, Editor and Batch Converter

 

Hello Wayne, *Smile

You could see if resetting the Store cache may help with app updates.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1...dows-10-a.html

If not, then sometimes restarting the computer may help the app work properly again.

If still not, then you could try re-registering the Store.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/8...dows-10-a.html

If still not, you could try uninstalling and reinstalling the app for only that account.

 

Thanks Shawn, thanks for the links. I did try re registering the once store before and that's why I am extremely wary of powershell in this current build. It caused more havoc than good, luckily a system restore point brought everything back but I did have to delete a couple of the user accounts and recreate (I can't remember what the lingering issue was) which was pretty painful. I might ignore the photos app for now and see if a future update brings a magic fix

i would hope MS is aware of the unreliability of the store and update process. There seem to be enough issues when googling with no sure way of fixing for them to of noticed.

cheers, Wayne

 

Until then, here's how to restore Windows Photo Viewer to use for now if you like.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/1...dows-10-a.html

 

Wow, thanks. I was unaware of that still being in the OS. I will look into this.

cheers

 

I'm wondering which option would be best used in audit mode. Here's the scenario: Install a fresh copy of W10 Pro on a machine, at the welcome screen, <Ctrl> <Shift> <F3> into audit mode.

I want to uninstall certain apps and then have that propagate to all users post imaging. Would uninstalling the apps using options 1 or 2 apply to all future users after exiting audit mode or should I use option 3?

I've got all weekend to test this out but if someone's already tried it, would love to hear the results.

 

Hello jnanavich, *Smile

I haven't done this in audit mode, but I would avoid the ones applied to all users. They currently break the default apps in Start.

 

First off - this site is genius. There is more helpful info here than anywhere else I've found. Many thanks!

I did a little testing and this seemed to work for me so I thought maybe I'd throw this up in case it might help others. Or maybe I'm way off base here and if so I'm open to criticism or correction.

Fresh install of Windows 10 Pro 64 bit. <Ctrl> <Shift> <F3> at welcome to get into audit mode.
First thing I tried was uninstalling different apps in different ways, I uninstalled a few apps from the settings, a few for the current user and a few provisioned apps for all users (Options 1, 2 and 3).Created an answer file, then sysprep using

sysprep.exe /generalize /oobe /shutdown /unattend:E:\unattend.xml

This failed giving the error "Sysprep was not able to validate your Windows installation." The log file referenced errors like: "SYSPRP package <packagename> was installed for a user, but not provisioned for all users. This package will not function properly in the sysprep image." and "SYSPRP Failed to remove apps for the current user: 0x80073cf2."

So I reinstalled into audit mode and this time uninstalled all apps using PowerShell for both the current user using:
Get-AppxPackage | % {if (!($_.IsFramework -or $_.PublisherId -eq "cw5n1h2txyewy")) {$_}} | Remove-AppxPackage
...and then for the provisioned apps using:
Get-AppXProvisionedPackage -Online | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online

After running SYSPREP this time there were no failures, machine shut down, fired it up, went through the setup and all apps were gone except Edge. The Store app was gone though and so I'm not sure I want that gone.

So I reinstalled into audit mode and this time tried uninstalling a half dozen apps.

I used the following PowerShell command to list the apps for the current user:
Get-AppxPackage | % {if (!($_.IsFramework -or $_.PublisherId -eq "cw5n1h2txyewy")) {$_}} | select PackageFullName
and the following to get a list of provisioned apps:
Get-AppXProvisionedPackage -Online | Select PackageName

Then I uninstalled the same apps for both the current user and the matching provisioned apps using:
Remove-AppXPackage Microsoft.SkypeApp_3.2.1.0_x86__kzf8qxf38zg5c
Remove-AppXPackage Microsoft.3DBuilder_10.9.50.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Remove-AppXPackage Microsoft.BingFinance_4.6.169.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Remove-AppXPackage Microsoft.BingNews_4.6.169.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Remove-AppXPackage Microsoft.BingSports_4.6.169.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Remove-AppXPackage Microsoft.BingWeather_4.6.169.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Remove-AppXPackage Microsoft.CommsPhone_1.10.15000.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Remove-AppXProvisionedPackage -Online -PackageName Microsoft.SkypeApp_3.2.1.0_neutral_~_kzf8qxf38zg5c
Remove-AppXProvisionedPackage -Online -PackageName Microsoft.3DBuilder_10.9.50.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe
Remove-AppXProvisionedPackage -Online -PackageName Microsoft.BingFinance_4.6.169.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe
Remove-AppXProvisionedPackage -Online -PackageName Microsoft.BingNews_4.6.169.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe
Remove-AppXProvisionedPackage -Online -PackageName Microsoft.BingSports_4.6.169.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe
Remove-AppXProvisionedPackage -Online -PackageName Microsoft.BingWeather_4.6.169.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe
Remove-AppXProvisionedPackage -Online -PackageName Microsoft.CommsPhone_1.10.15000.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe

SYSPREPped the machine and no errors.

But... (and I'm not sure if this is what folks are talking about "breaking" the default apps but...) After imaging either removing all apps or just a few selected apps, I get tiles in the Start menu that have a band of smaller icons across them (see screenshot.) When I'd uninstalled Store (in my second try by uninstalling all apps) and I tried clicking on these "broken" apps it gave me a message "You'll need a new app to open this ms-windows store." When I'd just uninstalled certain apps for both the current user and the matching provisioned app but left Store, I'd still get the "broken" app showing in the Start menu but when I clicked on it the Windows Store would open. In either case I can right click and unpin that "broken" app from the Start menu.




I guess I should explain I'm preparing Windows 10 to be rolled out in a (government) business environment and don't really want folks exploring the Sports, News, etc. apps. These are business computers and the last thing I need is folks complaining to the Mayor that they walked in and everyone was playing MineCraft. I'd like to lock these things down with only minimal apps available. So I guess my end goal would be to uninstall almost every app (maybe not weather and I've read about leaving Store and just disabling it but haven't got that far yet.)

So the direction I'm leaning for audit mode is to uninstall most of the apps for the current user and then the corresponding provisioned apps. It seems that for sysprep to work, I need to uninstall those in pairs. Sysprep fails if I just uninstall the provisioned app and not the corresponding current user (built in Administrator) app. Also, with the "broken" apps or tiles in the Start menu, if I right click and remove those logged in as the built in Administrator in audit mode, then run sysprep they don't show up for any new users created after the sysprep process runs and I'm out of audit mode. The apps and the "broken" tiles are gone.

Sorry, a bit lengthy I know but hopefully it'll help someone down the road. Or like I said, if I'm wrong here, I can take being flamed. *Wink

 

@jnanavich,

Thank you for sharing your results. *Smile

 

Hi guys,

I am so sorry for bringing this up again. The built in photos app not working for some of our users accounts continues to bug me quite a bit. I want to try and fix it without having to delete these user accounts and start all over again.

I really do not want to risk upsetting the app on the accounts (my own) where the photos app works just fine. So I want this to only happen on specific user account (these are standard accounts and not administrator accounts). So first question is do these accounts need to be administrator before attempting any powershell related fix? Second question, I am extremely wary of powershell causing more damage than it fixes under this current build, so if I want to remove the photos app from a specific user account, am I safe to open powershell and type Get-AppxPackage *photos* | Remove-AppxPackage or have I interpreted that all wrong. I want to be absolutely sure this will only happen for this user and affect nobody else. Having done this, do I then go into windows store and search for the photos app and choose to install it (will this again only effect the current user)

Or is their a much easier way of doing this? If only MS apps had the option to right click and choose uninstall for their own in built apps it might be easier. But unfortunately this is always greyed out.

 

Yep, that would be the correct command to uninstall the Photos app from only the current user.

If it still doesn't fix the app after reinstalling it, then doing a repair install should be able to without losing anything.

Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade

 

Thanks Brink. And will it work even though the user account I will be trying it whilst logged into is only a standard account? I would also be then attempting it on my son's account after this which is only a child account. Am I going to run into problems because neither is an administrator account?

Thanks,
Wayne