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How to remove Windows Store apps with PowerShell

Question

Wednesday, November 22, 2017 3:35 PM

An account has been corrupted after its AppData location was changed

I have to remove Windows Store apps installed by the old account in order to make the new account work with Visual Studio app deployment.  Unfortunately, search, settings, Windows Store, Windows Store apps all have stopped working.  I am unable to right-click an app to uninstall it.  

I have tried this PowerShell script to uninstall them, but encountered the following error for each of them:

Remove 'xxxx.xxxxx' failed! This app is part of Windows and cannot be uninstalled on a per-user basis.

They are not a part of Windows.  They are my apps. 

Could anyone offer a tip on how to remove them?

Hong

All replies (6)

Thursday, November 23, 2017 3:45 AM ✅Answered | 1 vote

Hi,

I also found several threads may give you some ideas, please refer to the links:

How to Uninstall Windows 10’s Built-in Apps (and How to Reinstall Them)

https://www.howtogeek.com/224798/how-to-uninstall-windows-10s-built-in-apps-and-how-to-reinstall-them/

Unable to uninstall Universal Apps through PowerShell

https://superuser.com/questions/1115801/unable-to-uninstall-universal-apps-through-powershell

Hope they can help you.

Best Regards,

Tao

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Wednesday, November 22, 2017 3:54 PM | 2 votes

Hong, I found this method from someone else a couple of years ago posted on Cnet and it works well for me. Be sure to run PowerShell as Admin. Key in exactly like this, of course using the name of the app you want to remove inside the asterisks.  Here is the example to remove Windows Maps.  I have listed below the other ones I know about.

Get-AppxPackage *windowsmaps* | Remove-AppxPackage

Other items to remove include

3D Builder = 3dbuilder

Alarms and Clocks = windowsalarms

Calculator = windowscalculator

Calendar and Mail = windowscommunicationsapps

Groove Music = zunemusic

Movies and TV = zunevideo

OneNote = onenote

People = people

Photos = photos

Store = windowsstore

Voice Recorder = soundrecorder

Xbox = xboxapp

Actually just found the link to the article I got this from.  Not sure if I'm supposed to post that, but here it is for now.   https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-uninstall-default-apps-in-windows-10/


Wednesday, November 22, 2017 10:36 PM

Hong, I found this method from someone else a couple of years ago posted on Cnet and it works well for me. Be sure to run PowerShell as Admin. Key in exactly like this, of course using the name of the app you want to remove inside the asterisks.  Here is the example to remove Windows Maps.  I have listed below the other ones I know about.

Get-AppxPackage *windowsmaps* | Remove-AppxPackage

Other items to remove include

3D Builder = 3dbuilder

Alarms and Clocks = windowsalarms

Calculator = windowscalculator

Calendar and Mail = windowscommunicationsapps

Groove Music = zunemusic

Movies and TV = zunevideo

OneNote = onenote

People = people

Photos = photos

Store = windowsstore

Voice Recorder = soundrecorder

Xbox = xboxapp

Actually just found the link to the article I got this from.  Not sure if I'm supposed to post that, but here it is for now.   https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-uninstall-default-apps-in-windows-10/

Davidoo1, Please don't say what you don't know. All that you said just don't works.


Wednesday, November 22, 2017 11:35 PM

Thank you for the tip, Davidoo1.

I am not clear what names I should use to remove the apps that I installed.

Hong


Thursday, November 23, 2017 8:05 AM

It looks like that for the latest version of Windows 10, PowerShell is not powerful enough to remove user installed Windows Store apps. 

Hong


Monday, November 27, 2017 3:13 PM

Hong, I found this method from someone else a couple of years ago posted on Cnet and it works well for me. Be sure to run PowerShell as Admin. Key in exactly like this, of course using the name of the app you want to remove inside the asterisks.  Here is the example to remove Windows Maps.  I have listed below the other ones I know about.

Get-AppxPackage *windowsmaps* | Remove-AppxPackage

Other items to remove include

3D Builder = 3dbuilder

Alarms and Clocks = windowsalarms

Calculator = windowscalculator

Calendar and Mail = windowscommunicationsapps

Groove Music = zunemusic

Movies and TV = zunevideo

OneNote = onenote

People = people

Photos = photos

Store = windowsstore

Voice Recorder = soundrecorder

Xbox = xboxapp

Actually just found the link to the article I got this from.  Not sure if I'm supposed to post that, but here it is for now.   https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-uninstall-default-apps-in-windows-10/

Davidoo1, Please don't say what you don't know. All that you said just don't works.

Not sure where you are coming from DiegoBH.  This works for me as I just used the exact method above in power shell to remove the maps app from someone's PC running windows 10.  Hong had stated in his original post that he tried using "remove xxxx.xxxx" and it failed.  I was simply pointing out that the actual line you have to type in power shell is Get-AppxPackage *windowsmaps* | Remove-AppxPackage.  If you don't type the command in exactly, it won't work.  Now, the computer I recently deleted the maps app from was running the original windows 10 version 15xx, so it is certainly possible this doesn't work with the creators update, but I have version 1703 at home and it works on that as well.