The Modern apps that come with Windows 8 might be nice for the casual user, but if you’re determined to run a “clean” system, or maximise available disk space, the first thing you’ll want to do after a fresh install is remove them. This, it turns out, is a straightforward procedure, as long as you don’t mind a bit of command-line action.
Winaero has published a series of steps that’ll not only purge those apps from your user account, but all accounts. In addition, you can configure it so that those apps won’t be installed on any subsequently created accounts.
First, you’ll need to fire up the ever-colourful PowerShell, easily accomplished by pressing the Windows key on your keyboard, typing “powershell” into the search box that appears and pressing Enter once the program becomes visible.
With PowerShell open, you can type the following to see a list of installed Modern apps:
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers
As the Winaero article notes, applications marked as “Staged” will be installed on new users accounts. Before you get to those, you can remove all currently installed Modern apps for all users using this command:
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage
Finally, to make sure the apps never grace your machine again, this will stop them being installed for new users:
Get-AppXProvisionedPackage -online | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -online
If for some reason you want to get the apps back, you can just download them again via Windows Store. You might see a few errors, but these can be safely ignored.
How to remove all bundled Modern apps from your user account in Windows 8 [Winaero]
Is this a different set of apps than those that comes in Metro (or whatever the hell it's called now) Because I've noticed that just right clicking on them gives you an uninstall option? Or does that only do a pseudo uninstall?
... or you could just right-click on them and select "uninstall", as I have done with most of them. Not hard at all.
Umm isn't that what I said earlier?
It says denied every time i try this. Might it be due to me already having uninstalling the apps via the way @bonkers described??
From the source link:
So that would be why this method is different to just uninstalling.
How much space do they take up though? The simple right click uninstall does it without the hassle. Surely they aren't that big that they are a problem.
Just purchased Dell laptop and right clicking on them does not work. Neither did the Powershell instructions.