How to remove built-in apps in Windows 10 Enterprise

I’m a big fan of Microsoft Windows 10. From the very beginning I took part of the Windows Insider program and tested build by build. So far this was only the Windows 10 Professional version but when Windows 10 was official released, I got my hands on the Windows 10 Enterprise edition. The first time I was using Windows 10 Enterprise I was a little surprised about the built-in apps which were installed by default. Apps like Microsoft Solitaire Collection, a Weather App and even a Xbox App which you can not even remove.

The following Apps cannot be removed by default (see screenshot below) ; Calendar, Camera, Contact Support, Groove Music, Mail, Maps, Movies & TV, OneNote, People, Weather, Windows Feedback and Xbox.

(no uninstall option when right click on Xbox App) 

OneNote, Calendar and Mail are very useful Apps, but by most companies there will always be a Microsoft Office Suite be installed on the device. And that makes these applications superfluous, the removal of these applications must therefore always be an option is my opinion.

How to remove the built-in applications?

The way to remove the built-in applications is pretty easy, it consists of two steps. In step one, you remove the application from the base Windows 10 image so that new users will not get the applications at all. In the second step the applications will be removed for the current user who has already got the applications installed before it was removed from the base image.

Step 1 

Open the Windows PowerShell application as Administrator (Run as Administrator) and enter the following command;

Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online

That command will display a list of built-in applications with their DisplayName. This DisplayName is needed for the next command. Here is a list of the Built-in Apps with their DisplayName;

Tekst3D Builder = Microsoft.3DBuilder
Calendar and Mail = microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps
Camera = Microsoft.WindowsCamera
Get Office = Microsoft.MicrosoftOfficeHub
Get Skype = Microsoft.SkypeApp
Get Started = Microsoft.Getstarted
Groove Music = Microsoft.ZuneMusic
Maps = Microsoft.WindowsMaps
Microsoft Solitaire Collection = Microsoft.MicrosoftSolitaireCollection
Money = Microsoft.BingFinance
Movies & TV = Microsoft.ZuneVideo
News = Microsoft.BingNews
OneNote = Microsoft.Office.OneNote
People = Microsoft.People
Phone Companion = Microsoft.WindowsPhone
Photos = Microsoft.Windows.Photos
Sports = Microsoft.BingSports
Weather = Microsoft.BingWeather
Xbox = Microsoft.XboxApp

With the following command you can remove a built-in app from the Windows base image;

Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | Where-Object DisplayName -In <DisplayName> | Remove-ProvisionedAppxPackage -Online

Replace <DiskplayName> with the DisplayName of the App, for example;

Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | Where-Object DisplayName -In Microsoft.XboxApp | Remove-ProvisionedAppxPackage -Online

After running the command for the app you want to remove you see the output like shown in the screenshot above. After removing the all the apps you want, the first command (Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online) to see if they are all removed from the base image.

Step 2

The second step is to remove the built-in apps that are already installed in the current user profile. For that, run the following command;

Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers

This will display a list wat looks like this;

The PackageFullName is needed for the next command, here is the list with the built-in apps with their PackageFullName. Check before removing if the version is still the same;

Tekst3D Builder = Microsoft.3DBuilder_10.9.6.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Calendar and Mail = microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_17.6306.42251.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Camera = Microsoft.WindowsCamera_2015.1064.10.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Get Office = Microsoft.MicrosoftOfficeHub_17.6307.23501.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Get Skype = Microsoft.SkypeApp_3.2.1.0_x86__kzf8qxf38zg5c
Get Started = Microsoft.Getstarted_2.3.4.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Groove Music = Microsoft.ZuneMusic_3.6.13281.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Maps = Microsoft.WindowsMaps_4.1509.50911.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Microsoft Solitaire Collection = Microsoft.MicrosoftSolitaireCollection_3.4.9241.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Money = Microsoft.BingFinance_4.6.169.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Movies & TV = Microsoft.ZuneVideo_3.6.13251.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
News = Microsoft.BingNews_4.6.169.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe
OneNote = Microsoft.Office.OneNote_17.6131.10051.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
People = Microsoft.People_1.10241.0.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Phone Companion = Microsoft.WindowsPhone_10.1509.17010.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Photos = Microsoft.Windows.Photos_15.1001.16470.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Sports = Microsoft.BingSports_4.6.169.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Weather = Microsoft.BingWeather_4.6.169.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Xbox = Microsoft.XboxApp_9.9.28033.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe

Run the following command to remove a built-in app from the current user profile;

Remove-AppxPackage -package <PackageFullName>

Replace <PackageFullName> with the PackageFullName of the App, for example

Remove-AppxPackage -package Microsoft.XboxApp_9.9.28033.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe

After running this command, the app will be removed and the following dialog will be displayed;

And that’s about it. Your Start Menu should now look a lot clearer 🙂