Last Updated on March 23, 2018
Windows 10 Creators Update has again shown us that Microsoft isn’t going to stop pushing unwanted apps to the users anytime soon. If you are among the majority which doesn’t like having unwanted apps on your PC, then you can use this article to uninstall most of the apps.
These bloatware apps install automatically when you setup Windows 10 for the first time and there’s no way for you to stop this. You can, of course, uninstall them one by one after you get to your Desktop.
Uninstalling Apps (bloatware) from Windows 10 Creators Update
Windows 10 by default has a lot of apps pre-installed on it. Some of them are useful like Mail and Maps, but most of these apps are crappy games and bloat that you don’t need on your PC. So, making sure which apps are useful and which one is not can sometimes become confusing.
To make things easier, I have categorized these apps as Bloat, Essentials, and Others.
Bloatware are the apps which serve no purpose on your PC other than hogging up space and annoying you from time to time.
Essentials are the ones which I think that most people will need while using their Windows 10 PC time to time.
Others are the apps which are useful but only for specific use cases. You may rarely use them, but they won’t bother you much.
To uninstall these apps, you can use the Microsoft PowerShell as administrator and remove them from your PC.
- First, open the
PowerShell
by searching for it in the start menu search. - Right-click on PowerShell and run it as administrator.
- Type cd .\Desktop\ and press Enter to switch the current working directory to the Desktop.
- Now, you can use the Get-AppxPackage command to view the list of all installed apps on your PC. Type the following command to get a list of all apps on your PC in a text file on your Desktop.
Get-AppxPackage | Out-File myapps.txt
Now, open the myapps.txt with notepad and you’ll see a very large file with all installed apps listed.
In this PowerShell window, you can use the Remove-AppxPackage
command to uninstall any UWP app.
The general format for typing the command is Remove-AppxPackage <app name>
. Look the app name from the myapps.txt file on your desktop.
Of course, finding each app on your Windows 10 PC and figuring out whether it is useful or not is quite tiresome. So, for your convenience, I have made the list of all the current apps that come installed on Windows 10 Creators Update.
You can type these commands in the PowerShell window to uninstall that particular app.
Bloatware
These are the apps that you should uninstall right away. Removing them from your PC won’t have any detrimental effects on its stability or performance.
Minecraft
Get-AppxPackage *Minecraft* | Remove-AppxPackage
Drawboard PDF
Get-AppxPackage *DrawboardPDF* | Remove-AppxPackage
Farmville 2: Country Escape
Get-AppxPackage *FarmVille2CountryEscape* | Remove-AppxPackage
Asphalt: Airborne
Get-AppxPackage *Asphalt8Airborne* | Remove-AppxPackage
Pandora
Get-AppxPackage *PandoraMediaInc* | Remove-AppxPackage
Candy Crush Soda Saga
Get-AppxPackage *CandyCrushSodaSaga* | Remove-AppxPackage
Microsoft Solitaire Collection
Get-AppxPackage *MicrosoftSolitaireCollection* | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *Twitter* | Remove-AppxPackage
Sports
Get-AppxPackage *bingsports* | Remove-AppxPackage
Money
Get-AppxPackage *bingfinance* | Remove-AppxPackage
Get Office
Get-AppxPackage *officehub* | Remove-AppxPackage
News
Get-AppxPackage *BingNews* | Remove-AppxPackage
Phone Companion
Get-AppxPackage *windowsphone* | Remove-AppxPackage
Windows Holographic
Get-AppxPackage *HolographicFirstRun* | Remove-AppxPackage
Netflix
Get-AppxPackage *Netflix* | Remove-AppxPackage
Weather
Get-AppxPackage *bingweather* | Remove-AppxPackage
View 3D Preview
Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft3DViewer* | Remove-AppxPackage
Movies & TV
Get-AppxPackage *ZuneVideo* | Remove-AppxPackage
3D Builder
Get-AppxPackage *3dbuilder* | Remove-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage *Facebook* | Remove-AppxPackage
Get Skype
Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.SkypeApp* | Remove-AppxPackage
Skype Preview
Get-AppxPackage *SkypeApp* | Remove-AppxPackage
App Connector
Get-AppxPackage *Appconnector* | Remove-AppxPackage
Microsoft Wallet
Get-AppxPackage *Wallet* | Remove-AppxPackage
Sway
Get-AppxPackage *Office.Sway* | Remove-AppxPackage
Groove Music
Get-AppxPackage *ZuneMusic* | Remove-AppxPackage
Essentials
These are the apps that you will either need or are required by Windows 10 to function correctly. I recommend you to not mess with them.
Store (single account only)
Get-AppxPackage *WindowsStore* | Remove-AppxPackage
Calculator
Get-AppxPackage *WindowsCalculator* | Remove-AppxPackage
Paid Wi-Fi & Cellular
Get-AppxPackage *OneConnect* | Remove-AppxPackage
Alarms & Clock
Get-AppxPackage *WindowsAlarms* | Remove-AppxPackage
Calendar and Mail
Get-AppxPackage *windowscommunicationsapps* | Remove-AppxPackage
Camera
Get-AppxPackage *WindowsCamera* | Remove-AppxPackage
Maps
Get-AppxPackage *WindowsMaps* | Remove-AppxPackage
Messaging
Get-AppxPackage *Messaging* | Remove-AppxPackage
Voice Recorder
Get-AppxPackage *soundrecorder* | Remove-AppxPackage
Paint 3D
Get-AppxPackage *MSPaint* | Remove-AppxPackage
Phone
Get-AppxPackage *CommsPhone* | Remove-AppxPackage
Photos
Get-AppxPackage *Photos* | Remove-AppxPackage
Scan
Get-AppxPackage *WindowsScan* | Remove-AppxPackage
Others
These are the miscellaneous apps that may or may not be useful depending on whether you personally find a use case for it. You can remove most of these without affecting Windows 10 features.
OneNote
Get-AppxPackage *OneNote* | Remove-AppxPackage
Sticky Notes
Get-AppxPackage *MicrosoftStickyNotes* | Remove-AppxPackage
Xbox
Get-AppxPackage *XboxApp* | Remove-AppxPackage
Xbox Game Speech Window
Get-AppxPackage *XboxSpeechToTextOverlay* | Remove-AppxPackage
Xbox One SmartGlass
Get-AppxPackage *XboxOneSmartGlass* | Remove-AppxPackage
Feedback Hub
Get-AppxPackage *WindowsFeedbackHub* | Remove-AppxPackage
People
Get-AppxPackage *People* | Remove-AppxPackage
Microsoft Wi-Fi
Get-AppxPackage *ConnectivityStore* | Remove-AppxPackage
I have followed your directions for removing any unwanted app in windows 10. However, after typing in the command and hitting enter nothing happens to let me know if it is removing it, thinking, or when its done and to exit. It just sits there doing nothing. Can you please advise. Thank you.
Yeah, there is no feedback from Powershell after you remove an app. You can confirm whether an app has been removed successfully by looking for it in the start menu search. The app you removed shouldn’t appear in the results.
Below are the two methods I attempted to use to remove the app. I realized now that I am NOT supposed to update the pc before running Sysprep which is a huge inconvenience. I was curious if by any chance you have a solution for removing the apps still?
Thank you,
You can’t remove all the apps from Windows without breaking the system. The OS forbids you from removing core apps via the command line. Miracast is one such app that can’t be removed.
You can read the error description which you posted where it is written that “This app is part of
Windows and cannot be uninstalled on a per-user basis. An administrator can attempt to remove the app from the
computer using Turn Windows Features on or off. However, it may not be possible to uninstall the app.“.
Thank you for the quick response. I guess unfortunately I will have to do a factory reset and start over because sysprep was prompting me that was causing the issue.
Trying to remove the Holographic app results in this error:
Remove-AppxPackage : Deployment failed with HRESULT: 0x80073CFA, Removal failed. Please contact your software vendor.
(Exception from HRESULT: 0x80073CFA)
error 0x80070032: AppX Deployment Remove operation on package
Microsoft.Windows.HolographicFirstRun_10.0.16299.125_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy from:
C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.HolographicFirstRun_cw5n1h2txyewy failed. This app is part of Windows and
cannot be uninstalled on a per-user basis. An administrator can attempt to remove the app from the computer using Turn
Windows Features on or off. However, it may not be possible to uninstall the app.
NOTE: For additional information, look for [ActivityId] aef7b0b0-8de9-0003-fee1-f7aee98dd301 in the Event Log or use
the command line Get-AppxLog -ActivityID aef7b0b0-8de9-0003-fee1-f7aee98dd301
At line:1 char:41
+ Get-AppxPackage *HolographicFirstRun* | Remove-AppxPackage
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : WriteError: (Microsoft.Windo…l_cw5n1h2txyewy:String) [Remove-AppxPackage], IOException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : DeploymentError,Microsoft.Windows.Appx.PackageManager.Commands.RemoveAppxPackageCommand
This also happens when removing the People app. Those are the only two that gave me such errors.
Some apps can’t be removed by anyone on Windows 10. It looks like developers have added People’s and Holographic’s app to this list.
Thanks for this info. I’ll be bookmarking this page.
When I try to remove Get-AppxPackage *HolographicFirstRun* | Remove-AppxPackage
I get this:
Remove-AppxPackage : Deployment failed with HRESULT: 0x80073CFA, Removal failed. Please contact your software vendor.
(Exception from HRESULT: 0x80073CFA)
error 0x80070032: AppX Deployment Remove operation on the package
Microsoft.Windows.HolographicFirstRun_10.0.17134.1_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy from:
C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.HolographicFirstRun_cw5n1h2txyewy failed. This app is part of Windows and
cannot be uninstalled on a per-user basis. An administrator can attempt to remove the app from the computer using Turn
Windows Features on or off. However, it may not be possible to uninstall the app.
NOTE: For additional information, look for [ActivityId] f1d0eeb0-7eeb-0001-6779-d5f1eb7ed401 in the Event Log or use
the command line Get-AppxLog -ActivityID f1d0eeb0-7eeb-0001-6779-d5f1eb7ed401
At line:1 char:41
+ Get-AppxPackage *HolographicFirstRun* | Remove-AppxPackage
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : WriteError: (Microsoft.Windo…l_cw5n1h2txyewy:String) [Remove-AppxPackage], IOException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : DeploymentError,Microsoft.Windows.Appx.PackageManager.Commands.RemoveAppxPackageCommand
Am I removing only the name of the app so it can’t be run; or am I also removing the underlying program from the computer
Depends on the app. Some apps have dependencies with other installed packages, so uninstalling them may or may not remove all those underlying programs from your computer.
Any way to remove the system apps that fail? This can be done in Android and not windows lol
Some apps might fail because they are a part of Windows.