Bott: Win10 apps – which are worth keeping, which should you dump?

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Over on ZDNet, Ed has a succinct roundup of major pre-installed Win10 apps and what you should do with them. Ed’s verdict: “Sponsored” crap apps – del
[See the full post at: Bott: Win10 apps – which are worth keeping, which should you dump?]

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Elly

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What I would really like to see is Microsoft give us an Operating System, period, without all the bloat.

Let everyone choose the Microsoft apps they want from the store. Stop trying to impose all the Crapps on every User. Personally, I find the UWP apps inferior to the ones I prefer. I have used none of them. I much prefer Open Shell, FireFox, Waterfox, Thunderbird, Libre Office, VLC Player, 7-Zip, the list goes on.

It’s a shame to be forced to install all that stuff with the Operating System, then turn around and have to uninstall it (hoping it doesn’t come back with the next upgrade in six months).

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AlexEiffel, JSTechGeek, johnf, Elly, Bluetrix, BobbyB, woody, Ascaris

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Here, here.

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BUT, who gets to define what is expected to be part of the Operating System? Should you be forced to go through the Microsoft Store with a preset group of apps to choose or turn down? To satisfy the EU would there have to be something akin to the browser selection screen?

Most users have no clue about what a base operating system would contain. Without pre-installed apps or a forced selection routine they would be forced to use their “support” person.

--Joe

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Lugh

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Well, let’s see. You can have everything in the “Windows Apps” flyout except the “Microsoft Store” and the “Settings.” The last one that didn’t show up very good is “XBox,” and, well, you can have that one too.

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I take it you are saying YOU don’t want any of them. There are a number which I too don’t care about. The problem is that there are others who will want or at least accept one or many. And the mix of those to be kept changes frequently by user. Microsoft and every other vendor has the problem that once something is introduced into a distribution getting rid of it becomes difficult.

BTW, for quite some time a Windows upgrade does not reinstall all apps. It honors the apps that have been uninstalled.

--Joe

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Lugh

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Look at the number!
You’re saying ALL of them should be installed automatically on EVERYBODY’s machine because SOMEBODY might want one or two?

I’m sure glad car maunfacturers don’t take that attitude.

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Elly

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I’m saying who gets to decide? Anyway, who cares about the number on a modern PC?

You seem to be saying lets not install anything. Let the user figure it out. You’d have to force the user into some basic selection screen as part of an initial setup otherwise they’d never have a browser to do anything.

I’m saying most users either can’t or won’t figure it out. They don’t want to. They do not care if there are one, two, or fifty extra apps installed. If they do have a favorite app they will install it. They just want to use the computer to do what they need.

--Joe

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Lugh

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Seems to me the folk at Redmond should take a walk down Memory lane, not installing Apps option and Browser choice would fit right in there.
https://ravindrakatiyar.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/image5.png
Sure it was a long install to begin with but it saves the messing about after install, so about the same time all in all. Who needs to listen to Cortana talking you through the install? when you could choose what you want and no coercion to sign up for a M$ account.

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doriel, Cybertooth

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All of these apps take up a trivial amount of space, so I leave them alone. Other than 3rd party stuff, especially the shovelware games – those, I’ll make an exception for and trash those. Everything else with Microsoft as the vendor, I leave alone. Again, a trivial amount of space taken up, even without actually using the apps.

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BobbyB

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Microsoft does give you a clean Windows 10 OS without any bloat… it is called LTSB/LTSC..
The problem is to how to get it legally.
Windows 10 LTSB is the best upgrade version for Windows 7 users.

LTSB Gets Security Updates for 10 Years, Without Feature Updates
LTSB Doesn’t Include the Store, Cortana, Edge, and Other Apps

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JCCWsusser, Cybertooth, Elly

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And is unavailable to the average (or even techy) User.

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Elly, woody

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PKCano wrote:

And is unavailable to the average (or even techy) User.

That’s the big problem that the best version of Windows 10 is unavailable outside Enterprises.

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Bluetrix, Elly, woody

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If you need to get rid of or reinstall the irritating Apps there’s a great Free utility, no need for the horrendous Power Shell lines and its O&O App Buster works a treat, any new install or upgrade run the above util. Saves on downloading updates and hard to remove Apps where the remove button is “Greyed out” or not an option with the exception of The Store which apparently is inadvisable to remove.
They are useful in many ways but really most are basically unwanted crud of no use to man nor beast, probably some one has use for some of them somewhere but not the vast majority of us.
I use Mail and Calender, would I use it to read and send Mail? Heck no! I use Office Outlook for that but for syncing with Calender, Mail, appointments, Holidays etc, and even with your ISP or Exchange account, displaying on the Desktop without Outlook open running in the background it works well and sync’s (here’s that word again) “Seamlessly”. News, Sport’s, Money, News, Weather, yes even Groove Music, Films and TV.
Are there better apps out there that do a similar Job better? Oh of course there are but they have to be installed.
You can use Mail and Calender etc but beware M$ uses the Apps not only as an advertising Portal but an attempt to goad you in to signing for that all important M$ Account. Which of course you don’t have to do if you sign in on a per app basis (Mail) or just ignore the log in to a M$ account to use.
They’re not perfect alas blank tiles sporadically due to the fact that they update in the back ground fairly regularly but there are ways round that. The all important setting Metered connection, Win Aerotweaker has a setting: https://winaero.com/blog/prevent-windows-10-from-downloading-app-updates-automatically/ that seems to reduce the weekly updates.
Another unwanted aspect of the Apps is that M$ seems to be using it as some sort of Advertising portal this can be mitigated to a large extent, certainly to the point were it ceases to be irritating by using: https://winaero.com/blog/winaero-tweaker-0-7-0-1/ and http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm makes them quite useful again.
Regular users no doubt have had to contend with the odd dead\blank tile where WSRESET at the CMD Prompt to reset or uninstall and reinstall fix’s the problem, O&O above is good as well.
In conclusion some work quite well, but most are just a waste of time and just one more item to remove as @pkcano quite rightly pointed out. They could have been a useful feature when introduced with Win’s 8, 8.1 but they have not really developed to their full potential as it seems to me M$ has steered them towards an Ads/Moneterised feature rather than a useful aide, pass time or addition to Productivity.

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Carl D, Lars220, Bluetrix

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@BobbyB,

thanks for the info about O&O’s App Buster. I downloaded it and when I ran it I was surprised to find that all of the Windows 10 1809 apps that were supposed to have been removed by the Tools option of CCleaner were still there, just ‘hidden’ apparently.

Mind you, I’ve always been a bit suspicious of CCleaner lately. Especially when it allegedly finds and removes 903 trackers which is what it was supposed to have done when I just ran it after a short online session (with Firefox + Adblock Plus, NoScript and Self Destructing Cookies installed).

And, on top of all that, I have Firefox configured to delete everything each time I close it. Go figure…

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The big problem is not uninstalling the apps you do not want,  but with the next Windows Feature update every app will be reinstalled.   Unless people want to write Powershell scripts to remove these features and run them every six months,  Microsoft will  eventually win and the apps will be installed on everyone’s computer.   The only way this can work is if Microsoft   would give the user a list of these apps, with the ability to say what should be reinstalled with every Feature update ( I  do not see this happening.).

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Alex5723

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Almost 1 year old
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/application-management/remove-provisioned-apps-during-update

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woody

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But does the list include the new Win10 1903 apps?

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That topic is for advanced SOE administrators. The list has obviously to be adapted to the current state of the OS, but the valuable information is the location of the registry keys/values which have to be set to avoid reinstalling the provisioned apps during an upgrade.
In addition, the undesirable applications need to be removed before upgrading first with Remove-AppPackage for each user with a profile on the machine and next with Remove-ProvisionedAppxPackage.
I am not giving a full procedure here, only replied to the anonymous poster to get him/her started following the Microsoft documentation.

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woody

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woody wrote:

But does the list include the new Win10 1903 apps?

There are new apps in 1903? Please tell!

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ch100

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Let’s start with “Seekers Notes: Hidden Mystery” and segue to “Dragon” and…

Yes, I know they’re all in the same general category, and can be removed readily. But still.

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ch100

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This is incorrect.

New feature updates don’t reinstall apps that were removed.  Well, not anymore, anyways.

And anyways, Windows 10 19H1 lets you uninstall a lot more than before.  They still haven’t gone far enough (why can’t I remove WordPad or Paint? I don’t want them) but it’s better than it’s been in a long time.

 

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woody

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And how will be sysprep working in 1903?

In last few updates it was utterly terryfing to run this utility. Best way is to NOT connect to the internet while preparing PC for image. I created one domain admin user, that cant acccess internet, just install SW and update via WSUS.

Once I removed Cortana in PowerShell (Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage). So much fun, so litlle things were actually working. All computer broken, nothing to do apart restoring to default state 🙂

Dell Latitude 3420, Intel Core i7 @ 2.8 GHz, 16GB RAM, W10 22H2 Enterprise

HAL3000, AMD Athlon 200GE @ 3,4 GHz, 8GB RAM, Fedora 29

PRUSA i3 MK3S+

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All I have left on my Windows 10 Professional 1809 is Snip & Sketch, Paint 3D and all of the usual things like Calculator, Paint, Wordpad, etc.

All of the rest have been removed with the Tools option of CCleaner. The only thing I can’t get rid of is Cortana (but “she’s” been turned into a ‘normal’ search function like previous Windows versions courtesy of Windows Privacy Dashboard) and Cortana and Connect remain stubbornly attached to the Start menu (even though Connect has been removed), I just ignore them.

And, as I have mentioned a few times in the past, I’ve avoided the install of Candy Crush, Bubble Witch, March of Empires, Disney’s Magic Kingdoms, Dolby Access, etc. by not having the PC connected to the Internet during the Windows 10 install and (most importantly) turning off and removing the ’empty’ live tiles from the Start menu prior to connecting to the Internet. If you don’t get rid of the tiles, you’ll still get the abovementioned ‘bloat’ as soon as you connect.

If you have more than one user account you must also disconnect from the Internet before signing into the extra accounts for the first time and turn off and remove the live tiles or you’ll get the ‘bloat’ installed in the extra account(s).

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anonymous wrote:

but with the next Windows Feature update every app will be reinstalled.

No.

I uninstalled all Microsoft Store apps (except for the Cortana (for search) and the Store app which I blocked from updating) on my 1803. Updated to 1809 and none have been re-installed.

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woody

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Where’s the article?  All I could see at ZD Net was a stupid setup where I would need to click TWENTY DIFFERENT TIMES in order to read the article tiny bit by tiny bit.  I can’t fathom the purpose for that..but then things like this inanity are why I stopped reading ZD Net years ago.

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Mele20 wrote:

click TWENTY DIFFERENT TIMES in order to read the article tiny bit by tiny bit. I can’t fathom the purpose for that

The purpose is so ZDnet can show you 20x the number of ads they could show on one page, and also to inflate their pageview count by 20x which may enable a higher price for unwary advertisers.

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

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doriel, Mele20, Bluetrix, woody

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Since Insider build 14926 in September 2016 an upgrade will not reinstall store apps which you have uninstalled. See https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2016/09/14/announcing-windows-10-insider-preview-build-14926-for-pc-and-mobile/#RALLu11RAVwwxjXD.97

--Joe

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woody, b

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True, but does that include the exciting new apps, such as “Seekers Notes,” or the non-Store apps that have been removed?

It’s not clear, at least to me, what most people are going to see when they get 1903 going. There’s an enormous amount of variability.

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Windows 10 can’t know that to not install something that has not yet been installed unless you install nothing. I would expect that the new apps would show up on the upgrade. I think you’ll have to uninstall it/them once.

--Joe

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Well, why is Mr Bott the arbiter of what I should keep and what I should remove on my computer. I look at each one and decide, myself, into which category they fall into and deal with them as appropriate. I have beaten my start page into submission and it’s much better than Win 7’s menu (which I never liked). However, that’s my opinion and I have no problem with anyone disagreeing with me. Attached is my start page and the Win 10 menu. I don’t see a problem because it suits me. [/rant off]

p.s. I edited these with Paint 3D – it was trivial to do. I might not use it again though (see my image editing array!)

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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Lugh

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Here is a pro (not home user targeted) view of the subject
https://virtualfeller.com/2015/11/03/windows-10-optimization-part-1/
Read the follow up articles for a more complete understanding of the issues involved.

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Elly, PKCano

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access-mdb wrote:

I have beaten my start page into submission

Nice. How do you get the menu into multiple columns as in 2nd pic? I hope it’s a toggle.

I’ve used the MS start & menu systems sparingly, and so avoid the occasional gnashing of teeth when MS changes it all. Being a visual-oriented person, I’ve used Stardock’s Fences since soon after if came out ~20 years ago. It’s much simpler for me than scrolling around menus and flyouts.

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

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Just click on the third icon down on the left hand side – ‘all apps’. The one above is pinned apps.

The vertical white line shows which one is in view.

It suits me as the font is relatively large and open menus don’t disappear if your mouse control is a bit off…

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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Lugh

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access-mdb wrote:

Just click on the third icon down on the left hand side

Thanks. While wondering why I didn’t have your choices, I discovered you must have Use Start Full Screen enabled in Settings > Personalization > Start.

Lugh.
~
Alienware Aurora R6; Win10 Home x64 1803; Office 365 x32
i7-7700; GeForce GTX 1060; 16GB DDR4 2400; 1TB SSD, 256GB SSD, 4TB HD

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wavy, Lars220

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My apologies Lugh – I thought I had mentioned full screen, but I hadn’t. The problems of proofreading your own text – you read what you meant to say, not what you said!

Eliminate spare time: start programming PowerShell

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Lars220

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