Windows 10 comes with built-in system apps such as Photos, Music, OneNote, Xbox, People, Camera, Cortana, etc. Uninstalling apps in Windows 10 is as easy as it was in the earlier version of Windows. All you have to do is go to Control Panel and uninstall the installed programs on your PC. The uninstallation process is also similar in Windows 10. However, in Windows 10 there are multiple ways to uninstall the programs or apps. You can uninstall apps from Settings > System > Apps and Features. From the list of apps, click on the app that you want to uninstall and click on the Uninstall button. This would uninstall the program from your system. You can also uninstall apps from the start menu as well as from Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features. However, with this method you can only install the third party apps or the apps you installed after buying the PC. For the apps that came preinstalled with the PC, you need to use the PowerShell to remove them. In this tutorial, we will be guiding you through the steps required to remove the built-in apps from the Windows 10 PC. There are two ways to remove pre-installed apps from your PC, and both of them are included in this post. Note: If you want to remove Cortana, then read how to disable Cortana in Windows 10 completely. Method 1: Remove Built-in Apps from Settings in Windows 10 As I said earlier, you can remove and uninstall some of the pre-installed apps from the Settings in Windows 10. Even though you won’t be able to remove larger built-in apps, you can still remove small apps from the Settings page in Windows 10. Follow these steps to know how to do it. 1. Click on Start button and select Settings. You can also access Settings from the Action Center. Click on the Action Center from the bottom right corner and select All Settings (Gear icon). 2. From the Settings page, click on System. From the System, look in the left pane and click on Apps and Features option. 3. You may see “Determining apps size” message. After that, you will see a list of all the installed apps on your PC. 4. From the list, go through all the listed apps. You have to look for Microsoft apps in the list. Click on any Microsoft or built-in app that you want to remove, and click on the Uninstall button. Do note that, if the built-in app cannot be deleted, the uninstall button will be grayed out. 5. You will be able to remove apps such as Get Office, Solitaire Collection, Phone companion, Money, News, People, Sports, Alarm, and Clock, Get started, etc. by clicking on them. This way remove all the small built-in apps in Windows 10. To remove preinstalled apps such as Cortana, Photos, Music, OneNote, Xbox, People, Camera, etc. you need to use PowerShell. With PowerShell, you can remove built-in apps in Windows 10. In addition, you can also remove apps such as Messaging, Phone, Skype and Sway in Windows 10 if you have upgraded to the latest Windows 10 Threshold 2 update. Here is how to remove built-in apps in Windows 10 using the PowerShell and few lines of command. Method 2: Remove Preinstalled Apps in Windows 10 using PowerShell Step 1: Open PowerShell Since we will be using PowerShell to remove the built-in Windows 10 apps, we need to open the PowerShell program window first. There are two ways to open the PowerShell window as mentioned below. I. Press Windows Key R. Type in “PowerShell” in the Run Dialogue box and hit enter. This will open the PowerShell window. II. Alternatively, you can also open PowerShell from the Search. Click on Start, search PowerShell, right-click on PowerShell and select Run as administrator. Step 2: Understanding and Running Commands in PowerShell To find and remove the pre-installed apps in Windows 10, we will be using two commands in the PowerShell. The commands are Get-AppxPackage and Remove-AppxPackage. Get-AppxPackage: This command is used to get a list of all installed apps on your Windows 10 computer. Remove-AppxPackage: This command is used to remove an app from your Windows 10 computer. Now before we start removing the pre-installed apps from your PC, we also need to know the full package name of the app you want to remove. With the command Get-AppxPackage | Select name, Packagefullname you can get the apps list with the package name without a cultured screen. So, let’s get started. Note: The below commands are not case sensitive. In your PowerShell window type in the following command: Get-AppxPackage This will display a list of all the apps installed on your PC. The list will also show other information such as publisher, resources, framework, etc. related to the apps. However, since we only need full package name, we will sort the list by App name and package name only. To do this type the following command: Get-AppxPackage | Select Name, PackageFullName The command will display the name of the app and PackageFullName. Step 3: Remove the App It’s time to remove the pre-installed apps in Windows 10. From the apps list, look for the inbuilt app that you want to remove from your PC. Copy the PackageFullName of the app by selecting it. Hit enter to copy the PackageFullname information to your clipboard. Now enter the following command along with the PackageFullName: Get-AppxPackage PackageFullName | Remove-AppxPackage In the above command, all you have to do is replace the PackageFullName with the Full package name information that you copied to your clipboard. So, if you want to remove Skype app, your command will look something like this: Get-appxpackage Microsoft.BingFinance_4.4.200.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe | Remove-appxpackage Hit enter to execute the command. If you don’t see any error, then be sure that the app has been removed from your Windows 10 PC. If you see any error, you may need to restart your PC to complete the uninstallation process of the app. Additional step to follow (optional): To remove apps from all the user account use the following command: Get-appxpackage -allusers packagefullname | Remove-appxpackage To remove apps from any other account on your PC, use the following command: get-appxpackage -user username packagefullname | Remove-appxpackage In the above command replace username with the user account name from which you want to uninstall the app. To remove all the built-in apps from Windows 10, use the following command: Get-appxpackage | Remove-appxpackage So, that’s it for this tutorial. Don’t remove all the built-in app at once as it may cause system errors. Only remove the apps, that you find annoying. In case, you are looking to remove Cortana in Windows 10; I would recommend you read the guide to disable Cortana in Windows 10 completely instead of uninstalling it.
