How do I get rid of items in Windows 10 Apps start menu?

Question

_{Friday, September 22, 2017 4:29 PM}

Hi,

I want to get rid of Windows Powershell (and a few other things such as Mixed Reality Portal) as a listed folder in my users program list in Windows 10.  I can disable them in Group Policy, no problem but I want them out of the Program Menu list.

For example, for Windows Powershell, we don't want it uninstalled because we (IT) can use it for another purpose.  However, we don't want it to show as a list of programs in the Users menu. I'm not talking about the tiles but the program list. How do I get rid of these along with these other shortcuts:

Cortana
Get Help
Mixed Reality Portal
Store
Windows Powershell

All replies (5)

_{Friday, September 22, 2017 4:34 PM | 1 vote}

Those articles set my on the way, however my concern was through a MDT process :

/en-us/windows/configuration/start-layout-xml-desktop

http://ccmexec.com/2015/09/customizing-the-windows-10-start-menu-and-add-ie-shortcut-during-osd/

_{Friday, September 22, 2017 5:14 PM}

Hi Loic,

Thanks for your reply.  I already have a custom Startmenu.xml layout on my OSD Task sequence. But it is this (PICTURE) that I don't know how to customize.  I just need to get rid of these following from the list...

Cortana
Get Help
Mixed Reality Portal
Store
Windows Powershell

_{Friday, September 22, 2017 5:20 PM | 1 vote}

You could use group policy to delete those folders / files from user's profile
C:\Users\username%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Windows PowerShell

Delete that Windows PowerShell folder

You can also delete items from here:
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

as for any AppX items, you'd have to run a powershell script to remove them completely. (Typically during OSD, but you can run after, it just works differently) I'd highly recommend getting rid of the store however, the store is required to update AppX packages that you actually do use (Calculator, etc).  Just disable logon to store, but leave it functional.

something like Get-AppxPackage | where name -like *help* | remove-appxpackages

play with that, and you should be able to get rid of most of those apps you don't want, just remember if you don't get it during OSD, you have to remove it as that user, which you could do with a CM deployment running in the user's context when they are logged on.

Mixed reality portal is a bit different: http://ccmexec.com/2017/05/remove-mixed-reality-portal-in-windows-10-1703-and-%e2%80%9dstuborn%e2%80%9d-apps/

One thing to think about... you might end up having to reapply these tweaks at every build update.  You might want to go under the method "If it doesn't hurt anything, just leave it alone".  Who cares if they see Cortana, or store.  Just lock things down via Policy and be done.  Applocker is also useful for controlling AppX packages.

_{Friday, September 22, 2017 9:39 PM}

Hi Garytown,

Thanks!  If I want to delete the Windows Poweshell Folder on OSD Task Sequence do you know how? Or anyone?

_{Tuesday, September 26, 2017 8:06 PM}

I haven't tested, but would assume if you delete the folder, it will remove it for all new profiles that are created: C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Windows PowerShell

So something like run command line: rd "C:\Users\Default\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Windows PowerShell" /S /Q