A PowerShell Question on Removing Built-In Apps

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One thing I’ve dabbled with over time and have not yet found a solution for is whether the last remaining “built-in” Apps can be removed from a running Windows 8.1 system. Specifically, all but windows.immersivecontrolpanel in the following list:

PowerShell’s Remove-AppXPackage refuses to remove these particular Apps, citing “This app is part of Windows and cannot be uninstalled on a per-user basis”.

It’s not a big deal, I have plenty of space, but some OCD part of me just wants them gone.

I wouldn’t think another thought about it but I actually pieced together how to do it and managed to remove them from Win 10. Something’s different between the two systems and the Win 10 technique of adjusting values in StateRepository-Machine.srd doesn’t apply (there isn’t one in 8.1).

Has anyone here discovered how to expunge these “built-in” Apps from a running Windows 8.1 image?

-Noel

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Noel,

I can’t specifically answer your question But in general, when W 10 first came and even up to the the time frame around about 1507 and even as late as 1511, W 10 was not as conductive to this as it is now. In W 10 I was even having issues getting the whole store framework and whatever Appx I had installed using VSS with Paragon. That was when I reverted to Backups only in WinPE, there was no problems then. In other words even in W 10 this whole separate Store subsystem/framework has been a real problem. Why, because of MS pertinacity to build stuff deep into the OS monopolistic attitude, just like IE.

In W 8/8.1 I have never had a problem backing up but the Store APPX are/were even more infused. Breakage in the OS with all of these infused subsystems/frameworks are high when Updates/Upgrades are performed. That is part of the reason I don’t go very close to meddling with the these types of areas like you do. I want an easy and problem free experience with Patching especially, that is what is paramount to me, not GUI stuff or seeing how much I can clean out with out breaking the current state of the OS. To each, there own however. I certainly understand the desire to get the OS much more Utilitarian, but that’s not the way MS builds Windows, I’d guess because they don’t want to be a utility company.

Good luck with all of that….

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1. Tower Totals: 2xSSD ~512GB, 2xHHD 20 TB, Memory 32GB

SSDs: 6xOS Partitions, 2xW8.1 Main & Test, 2x10.0 Test, Pro, x64

CPU i7 2600 K, SandyBridge/CougarPoint, 4 cores, 8 Threads, 3.4 GHz
Graphics Radeon RX 580, RX 580 ONLY Over Clocked
More perishable

2xMonitors Asus DVI, Sony 55" UHD TV HDMI

1. NUC 5i7 2cores, 4 Thread, Memory 8GB, 3.1 GHz, M2SSD 140GB
1xOS W8.1 Pro, NAS Dependent, Same Sony above.

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I’ll probably leave it alone as I currently have that problem-free Windows 8.1 experience you mentioned. I would of course test it thoroughly in a VM if I were to discover the secret.

Generally speaking, I’ve always found a leaner system tends to be more problem-free. And the more “new” stuff removed, the better.

-Noel

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Well Noel,

You must have a SPECIAL NACK, because when ever I went further into the specialty area, beyond UWT and a few Registry adjustments, I got into all sorts of problems.

I am not alone. I seem to be constantly reading about people crying about having to rip out there tweaks or not understanding why things are failing and breaking. Then they have to do a Clean Install get done what they need to do, and right away, they are putting all there tweaks back in.
awhile later they are crying the Blues again?????

Many are over 3rd Party AV…. On W 10, MS won’t even let one turn off WD now, and they are Crying the Blue by the Flock on the FB Hub??? O.o

What is wrong with this Picture???? :confused:

--------------------------------------

1. Tower Totals: 2xSSD ~512GB, 2xHHD 20 TB, Memory 32GB

SSDs: 6xOS Partitions, 2xW8.1 Main & Test, 2x10.0 Test, Pro, x64

CPU i7 2600 K, SandyBridge/CougarPoint, 4 cores, 8 Threads, 3.4 GHz
Graphics Radeon RX 580, RX 580 ONLY Over Clocked
More perishable

2xMonitors Asus DVI, Sony 55" UHD TV HDMI

1. NUC 5i7 2cores, 4 Thread, Memory 8GB, 3.1 GHz, M2SSD 140GB
1xOS W8.1 Pro, NAS Dependent, Same Sony above.

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PhotM wrote:

Well Noel,
You must have a SPECIAL NACK, because when ever I went further into the specialty area, beyond UWT and a few Registry adjustments, I got into all sorts of problems.

I do a LOT of hard work to make sure things don’t go wrong. I test all tweaks in virtual machines first, for example, and I look in all the various places (e.g. event logs, CBS.log, etc. etc.) for any hint of things going wrong. And I never, ever accept instability without getting to the bottom of why. Plus my hardware is robust (ECC RAM, overbuilt cooling, etc.).

It also doesn’t hurt to frequent tweaking sites and learn what others are doing. One I like, for example, is msfn.org.

Right now my System Reliability readings for my tweaked Win 7 (hardware system), Win 8.1 (hardware system), and Win 10 (VM) are all reading 10.

And yes, I’ve got…
The Knack

-Noel

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@ Noel

PowerShell’s Remove-AppXPackage refuses to remove these particular Apps, citing “This app is part of Windows and cannot be uninstalled on a per-user basis”.

When you tried removing winstore, for example, did you first stop the Windows Store Service (WSService) in Services or in the registry before you ran the Remove-AppXPackage command with the Winstore ID? That might allow you to remove it on a machine basis rather than on a per-user basis.

If that doesn’t work, there is a free program called GeekUninstaller that claims to do this:
https://www.geekuninstaller.com/

If that doesn’t work, take a look at the last two comments (from JEmlay and jerrybandersen) in this thread:
https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/397320-removing-photos-and-camera-metro-app-from-win8-1

I don’t currently have a Windows 8.1 system handy; otherwise, I’d run some tests for you.

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@ Noel

Here’s another interesting link that may help you remove those apps:
http://eddiejackson.net/wp/?p=10310

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anonymous wrote:

@ Noel
When you tried removing winstore, for example, did you first stop the Windows Store Service (WSService) in Services or in the registry before you ran the Remove-AppXPackage command with the Winstore ID? That might allow you to remove it on a machine basis rather than on a per-user basis.

Yeah, NONE of the App stuff is actually running.

Some of the links seem interesting, and I’ll check further. Thanks.

One of the things I require is that the system continue to pass an SFC check and be serviceable (i.e., updates don’t go awry).

-Noel

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anonymous wrote:

@ Noel
Here’s another interesting link that may help you remove those apps:
http://eddiejackson.net/wp/?p=10310

Thanks, but… I’ve long ago rid my Win 10 test system of ALL the Apps, even the built-in ones. That involved tweaking some values in a SQL database called StateRepository-Machine.srd, which freed up Remove-AppXPackage (and Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage) to work.

And the system still passes an SFC check, because the PowerShell commands did all the right things to tidy up.

It’s just that Win 8.1 is a little different. The aforementioned database apparently did not exist yet in that form on Win 8.1. It may have been something a little more primitive, but I haven’t discovered what yet.

-Noel

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@ Noel

It’s just that Win 8.1 is a little different.

Posters JEmlay and jerrybandersen in the SpiceWorks community thread were successful in removing the Camera and FileManager packages from Windows 8.1 using the install_wim_tweak utility.
https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/397320-removing-photos-and-camera-metro-app-from-win8-1

Have you tried this utility or does it not meet the stability that you require?

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Thanks very much – I worked briefly with install_wim_tweak back when I was fooling with removing things from Win 10, actually. I may fool with it some more in a VM and see what might happen. It won’t be practical for me to create a new user, though.

At this point while I’d like to expunge the rest of the Apps my system has been ultimately stable so I could probably live with them remaining behind forever more, especially if anything deep in the system can get broken by prying them out.

Certainly neither the store nor any part of the rest of the cloud-integration is actually running, and at the moment I have 739 GB free on drive C:, so I’m not short of storage.

-Noel

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