Restore Windows Store in Windows 10 after uninstalling it with PowerShell
Windows 10 comes with many built-in Modern apps of which some of them may not be useful to you. PowerShell, as you may’ve known, allows you to uninstall individual apps or all apps using a single command. If you had used the following command to uninstall all bundled apps in Windows 10, you should have noticed that the much useful “Windows Store” app is one among those removed apps.
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Get-AppXPackage | Remove-AppxPackage |
Without the “Windows Store” app, you won’t be able to install apps from the Store. This post tells you how to get back Windows Store after uninstalling it accidentally using PowerShell.
Reinstall Windows Store Using PowerShell
To restore or reinstall Windows Store in Windows 10, start PowerShell as Administrator. Click Start, type Powershell. In the search results, right-click “PowerShell” and click Run as administrator.
In the PowerShell window, Type the following command and press ENTER:
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Get-AppxPackage -allusers Microsoft.WindowsStore | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"} |
That restores Windows Store in most cases. However, for some users, the above command may throw one of the following errors and Store does not get reinstated:
Add-AppxPackage : Deployment failed with HRESULT: 0x80073CF6, Package could not be registered.
error 0x80070057: While processing the request, the system failed to register the windows.applyDataExtension extension …
error 0x80070057: Cannot register the request because the following error was encountered during the registration of the windows.applyDataExtension extension: The parameter is incorrect.
An internal error occurred with error 0x80070002.
Package could not be registered. Merge Failure : error 0x80070003 : Cannot register the Microsoft.WindowsStore_2015.23.23.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe package because there was a merge failure.
In those cases, your best option would be to create a new user account which will have all the built-in apps — including Windows Store.
Although there is a procedure that involves altering the “Program Files\WindowsApps” package folder permissions and attempting a reinstall of Windows Store and its dependencies, creating a new user account is probably the safest and preferred way.
Uninstall Individual Apps Using PowerShell
You can then remove unneeded apps individually using the following PowerShell command-line syntax.
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Get-AppxPackage [packagename] | Remove-AppxPackage |
You can also use asterisks (wildcard) instead of typing the full app name, such as “Microsoft.3DBuilder”. Here are some examples:
Uninstall 3D Builder
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Get-AppxPackage *3dbuilder* | Remove-AppxPackage |
Uninstall Calculator
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Get-AppxPackage *calculator* | Remove-AppxPackage |
Uninstall Xbox
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Get-AppxPackage *xboxapp* | Remove-AppxPackage |
You can uninstall other apps in the same way by using its package name. To find the package name, run the following PowerShell command:
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Get-AppxPackage -allusers |more |
Restore all Built-in Apps
If you wish to reinstall or restore all the built-in Windows 10 apps, use this command:
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Get-AppXPackage -allusers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"} |
That’s another way to restore Windows Store app along with all built-in apps.