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Question
Thursday, March 21, 2019 2:57 PM
We are having major issues with built-in apps for our Windows 10 Enterprise machines in my environment. Month after month I get new reports from users that have issues with their Photos, Calculator or Sticky Notes apps. When opened they simply close down immediately.
Event log shows errors such as
Activation for Microsoft.Windows.Photos_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App failed. Error code: The app didn't start.. Activation phase: COM ActivateExtension
and
The server Microsoft.Windows.Photos_2019.19011.19410.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe!App.AppXy9rh4t8m2jfpvhhxp6y2ksgeq77vymbq.mca did not register with DCOM within the required timeout.
I have spent maybe a full work week in total with this issue and I am still not able to find a consistent fix. More and more users report it/get the problem, and it seems to happen right after a Windows Update was installed and when the PC was rebooted. It happened for January and February updates, as well as now for March updates. Does not seem related to a specific update. Just now I got another report from a user with a freshly installed PC (2 months old, Windows 10 Enterprise 1809). I can’t find a pattern in the PCs that receive the problem.
I found a Microsoft article that suggested that this is a problem with permissions in known system folders, that may or may not have been modified via GPO. I have investigated this and could not find any GPO that modifies these folders permissions (only for other unrelated folders). I also cannot find any faulty permissions, but I have still attempted to ”fix” them but it doesn't seem to have helped. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2798317/microsoft-store-apps-fail-to-start-if-default-registry-or-file-permiss
Even though I am trying to find the root cause and stop it, I have also worked on trying to create a fix (like a script) to resolve it quickly when it happens. Gathering resources online for this or similar issues, this is the powershell script I run currently:
TAKEOWN /F "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps" /R /D Y
ICACLS "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps" /grant Administrators:F /T
ICACLS "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps" /T /Q /C /RESET
Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}
After running this script the apps will show error message “App could not run” instead of crash-to-desktop. At this point I can usually (not always) just log into the Store and reinstall the app (after clicking around somewhat in the GUI to trigger this reinstall-button to show) and it works. This is a tedious task to do for each user every time and it does not always work. I also don’t seem to be able to script this, especially since auto login to Store require Hybrid/Azure AD which I am not able to implement right now.
Upgrading the Windows 10 machine to the latest update (for example 1803 to 1809) does not help. These machines have not had any “Remove Windows 10 Apps” script ran. I used to, but that was a long time ago and most if not all machines mentioned in this post have not. I found a resource online (https://akosbakos.ch/reinstall-windows-store-app/) that guides you on how to download source files for apps (“Windows 10 Inbox Apps”) and install them again from this media via Add-AppXProvisionedPackage, but this generates error “Unspecified error” (seems to be a new bug with 1803/1809, many others have reported this online).
Also, going into the App settings via GUI and pressing “Reset” or even “Repair” does not seem to do anything. Specifically the “Repair” option suggests that it will reinstall the app, but it takes 1 second to complete and does not reinstall it. Is there any GPO or something that may block this one? That would be a possible fix if that button would work.
If you have any suggestions on how to approach this, please let me know. I am especially interested in finding and stopping the root cause.
All replies (8)
Tuesday, March 26, 2019 6:47 AM
Hi,
I would suggest you to reset default DCOM permissions.
How to reset the default DCOM permissions：
1. Click Start and select Run, type dcomcnfg, and press Enter.
2. Expand Componet Services\Computers, right-click My Computer and select Properties.
3. In the Default Distributed COM Communication Properties section of Default Properties tab, make sure that:
Default Authentication Level is set to Connect
Default Impersonation Level is set to Identify
Meanwhile, you may reset Windows Store:
How to Reset Windows Store apps in Windows 10 via Settings
https://www.thewindowsclub.com/reset-windows-store-apps-windows-10
Note: This is a third-party link and we do not have any guarantees on this website. And Microsoft does not make any guarantees about the content.
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Tuesday, March 26, 2019 3:08 PM
Thank you for your suggestions.
I have looked into the DCOM permissions you mentioned but it was configured correctly. However I will keep investigating DCOM permissions, maybe there is something missing here. Hmm.
Unfortunately resetting the App or Store App does not help in this case.
Thursday, March 28, 2019 3:12 AM
I know sir I've tried all the same as you .im going to uninstall and reinstall just as a temp to get6 work then back to trying more thank you jerry
Tuesday, April 9, 2019 3:22 AM
Hi,
Was your issue solved?
If yes, would you like to share your solution in order that other community members could find the helpful reply quickly.
If no, please reply and tell us the current situation in order to provide further help.
Best
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help.
If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact [email protected].
Thursday, April 11, 2019 7:45 AM
Hi,
No solution to the root cause yet. Currently I am fixing each affected computer as they come manually.
I am able to fix it by running the script mentioned in my original post, log in to the Microsoft Store, launch the application I have problems with so that I get an error message, and then go to that App in the Store and press "Reinstall".
Monday, July 15, 2019 7:18 PM
In addition to your script, I ran
Get-AppxPackage *photo* | Remove-AppxPackage
after that, I manually reinstalled it from MS store.
Friday, February 7, 2020 8:07 PM
Just wanted to share some information - our organization has seen a lot of this lately. Every machine we've seen so far the issue comes down to 0-byte .dll files in some dependency like .net, vclibs, xaml. As far as we know it appears to be the MS store app update that is breaking the dependencies and causing the 0-byte files but we don't know exactly how.
We disabled auto-update via a reg hack on our OS image task sequence to prevent new machines from breaking, but users can still do manual updates and break the store. That reg hack to prevent auto update is:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\WindowsStore]
"AutoDownload"=dword:00000002
we also found a post from Anton Romanyuk that appears to be a good fix for the issue on affected systems.
https://www.vacuumbreather.com/index.php/blog/item/89-the-case-of-corrupted-store-apps
Anton wrote a powershell script to identify 0-byte file apps, flag them as "needsremediation" then trigger MS store to update the apps. This fix does not require changing the default permissions on the WindowsApps folder.
I hope this helps, thanks for your post as it was very helpful to get us started on the issue.
Friday, February 7, 2020 8:45 PM
If anyone from Microsoft is monitoring this post, the root cause appears to be the MS Store update function sometimes creates 0-byte .dll files in AppStore dependency folders like .net, vclibs, xaml. And it's not caused by reboot or system crash etc. We had a test vm where all the apps were working, we had done no tweaks to it, we opened MS store and applied all updates and immediately saw the symptom. That system stayed on with user logged in during that entire procedure.
Bmalt