11 Feb 2019

And Then, Windows 10...

Please find below wot the good Ripper has taken the time to put together to help all us poor Windows 10 users – sufferers? to get a better start-up speed and stop a lot of unused stuff running in the background eating memory and possibly{?} reporting back to the mother ship. Hope you find it all useful. Many thanks, again, to Ripper. 

PART ONE.

   This is the first part of a tutorial on removing the bloatware apps that are pre-installed on a Windows 10 installation. This does not delete the apps, but merely removes them from a user's Windows account. This has the advantages of much faster booting and lower usage of resources and bandwidth since the apps are no longer running in the background and therefore sending none of YOUR data to Microsoft.
   At this point, a disclaimer - This is what has worked for me after some research. I cannot support you should anything go wrong and you do this at your own risk.
   To begin, you need to find out which apps are installed and the FULL name of the app packages, since there are some differences between build versions of Windows (I am on 1709). Everything is done in PowerShell as administrator. To load PowerShell as admin, right-click on the Windows 10 logo (Start button) in the left of the task bar and choose 'Windows PowerShell (Admin)' from the menu. Click 'Yes' on the 'Are you sure?' dialogue and the PS window will open. You are now ready to go.
   To get the list of apps and the full name of the app packages to remove you have a choice from 2 PS commands. Just to list them in the PS window type the following command (then hit Return):
Get-AppxPackage | Select Name, PackageFullName
   You can redirect the output of this command to a text file on your desktop, that you can then edit into a list of full package names for removal. For this, extend the above command to:
Get-AppxPackage | Select Name, PackageFullName >"$env:userprofile\Desktop\Apps_List.txt"
   There are a lot of packages in the list, some of them you definitely do NOT want to remove, for example anything to do with the Microsoft.NET Native Framework. .NET used to be, many moons ago, Visual Basic, and some 3rd party software will still use these runtime libraries to work, an example of this is Paint.NET. A couple of packages in the list will not allow you to remove them (I'm currently working on disabling those) and there are a couple which will screw up Windows if you do remove them (Cortana). So if you are unsure about any packages, do not remove them. In the next part I will publish a list of packages that I have removed and show you how to format the Apps_List.txt file for cut/paste into PowerShell.

One note, when you do the second command that ends List.Txt”, and you can’t see the desktop, don’t think, as I did, that after hitting ‘Enter’ and it pops back to the command line, that nothing happened as when you close all those open windows you’ll find the list has appeared on your desktop. How cleaver is that then!  Any questions for Ripper, you know where you can stick ‘em. Yup, in the Comments.

Quote;  Steven Magee.

“Windows 10 could only have been a worse experience if I had paid for it!”

4 comments:

Ripper said...

Part 2 (in two posts). You should now have a list of all installed apps on your desktop called 'Apps_list.txt', which you are now going to edit. This gives the name of the app packages on the left and their fullname (the one you need) on the right. First, delete all the lines for the apps you want to keep, then go through the list again, removing the 'Name' part of each app, just leaving its fullname.

You don't have to do this bit, you could simply copy/paste each fullname into PowerShell, but you would have to type the removal command in PS each time. To save a bit of work doing that, go to the beginning of the first line containing a fullname and type 'remove-appxpackage'. So you should end up with this (all on one line):

remove-appxpackage Microsoft.BingNews_4.28.3242.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe

Then select/copy the command 'remove-appxpackage ' and paste it at the beginning of each line. Note the space at the end of the command. In the following post is my list of apps for removal below, if you have the same apps installed you can simply use this list, but there could be differences depending on your Windows build, and besides there may be apps in my list that you use:

Ripper said...

remove-appxpackage Microsoft.BingNews_4.28.3242.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.Services.Store.Engagement_10.0.18101.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.Services.Store.Engagement_10.0.18101.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage DolbyLaboratories.DolbyAccess_2.3.301.0_x64__rz1tebttyb220
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.XboxApp_44.44.7002.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.Print3D_3.1.2612.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.MicrosoftOfficeHub_17.10314.31700.1000_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.Wallet_2.2.18065.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.XboxSpeechToTextOverlay_1.21.13002.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.StorePurchaseApp_11810.1001.10.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.XboxIdentityProvider_12.46.25001.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.WindowsStore_11810.1001.12.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.WindowsSoundRecorder_10.1804.911.1000_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.OneConnect_3.1811.3082.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.Xbox.TCUI_1.24.10001.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.Getstarted_6.15.12641.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.WindowsCalculator_10.1804.2492.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.WindowsAlarms_10.1804.1101.1000_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.WindowsFeedbackHub_1.1805.2331.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.Microsoft3DViewer_5.1811.27012.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.WindowsMaps_5.1809.2762.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.MSPaint_5.1811.20017.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.MicrosoftStickyNotes_2.1.18.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.People_10.3.3472.2000_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.BingWeather_4.28.3242.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.XboxGameOverlay_1.37.11001.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.ZuneMusic_10.18112.10711.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.GetHelp_10.1706.13371.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.Office.OneNote_16001.11126.20076.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.MicrosoftSolitaireCollection_4.2.11280.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.ZuneVideo_10.18112.14311.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.SkypeApp_14.37.98.0_x64__kzf8qxf38zg5c
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.Windows.Photos_2019.18112.20010.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.MicrosoftEdge_41.16299.820.0_neutral__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.XboxGameCallableUI_1000.16299.637.0_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy
remove-appxpackage microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_16005.11029.20108.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
remove-appxpackage Microsoft.Messaging_4.1810.2922.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
get-appxpackage *soundrecorder* | remove-appxpackage

Ripper said...

Sorry, ended up being 3 posts because of exceeding the character limit.

Simply copy each line in the list and paste it into Powershell (run as admin) and hit the return key. App gone. Having made this list you could change the filetype from '.txt' to '.bat' and run that as admin, but in my opinion its best to do this one app at a time, noting any failed removals along the way. And that's it - you should notice after this that the computer boots up at an amazing speed. Incidentally, to keep this speed increase I have been looking to replace all software I use with portable programs. This keeps the registry from getting bloated. I've come up with quite a few good ones so far, and all freeware. In the next part I will publish a list of registry keys, which will prevent the removed apps from returning during a Windows update.

Mac said...

Ripper,
All up tomorrow. Your time putting this together is greatly appreciated.