Uninstall or remove apps and programs in Windows 10

There are different ways to remove apps and programs, so if you can’t find the one you’re looking for, you can try another location. Note that some apps and programs are built into Windows and can’t be uninstalled. You can try to repair a program first, if it’s just not running correctly.

Uninstall from the Start menu

Select Start and look for the app or program in the list shown.

Press and hold (or right-click) on the app, then select Uninstall.

Uninstall from the Settings page

Select Start , then select Settings > Apps > Apps & features. Or just click the shortcut link at the bottom of this article.

Select the app you want to remove, and then select Uninstall.

Uninstall from the Control Panel (for programs)

In the search box on the taskbar, type Control Panel and select it from the results.

Select Programs > Programs and Features.

Press and hold (or right-click) on the program you want to remove and select Uninstall or Uninstall/ Change. Then follow the directions on the screen.

If you get an error message when you’re uninstalling, try the Program Install and Uninstall Troubleshooter.

If you’re trying to remove malware, see Stay protected with Windows Security to find out how to run a scan. Or if you use another antivirus software program, check their virus protection options.

How to close your Microsoft account

When you close a Microsoft account, whether because you no longer need it or because it’s a duplicate account, Microsoft wants to make sure of two things:

First, that it’s really you, not someone else trying to close your account.

Second, that you’re not leaving anything important behind that you’re going to need later.

To protect your account from accidentally being closed, we may ask you to prove your identity and intent. For example, if you forgot your account info and had to reset your security info, you must wait 60 days before closing your account.

If you’re sure you want to close your Microsoft account:

Expand the text headings below to learn more about the things you should check first.

Go through the process for how to close your account.

Find out what happens after you close your account.

Before you close your account

Closing a Microsoft account means you won’t be able to use it to sign in to the Microsoft products and services you’ve been using. It also deletes all the services associated with it, including your:

Outlook.com, Hotmail, Live, and MSN email accounts

Xbox Live data and GamerTag

Skype ID and contacts

Office digital perpetual licenses, like Office 2019 Home and Student

Account balance, unused Reward points and Microsoft Certification, including passed exams and associated transcripts.

You can’t delete just one of these services and keep the others.

So, before you close your account, take some time to tie up loose ends, cancel subscriptions, and make sure you don’t leave anything important behind—like files, money from gift cards, or emails. And don’t forget to consider less common services where you use your account. For example, use your remaining Online Commercial Support benefit and for developers, transfer any packages you saved on NuGet.org.

Before deleting your account, you may also want to review these articles: Close your Outlook.com account and Can I use Skype without my Microsoft account?

Select any heading below to learn more about what to do before closing your account:

Spend any remaining money in your Microsoft account by buying digital content from Microsoft Store.

To see how much money is in your Microsoft account, sign in to the Microsoft account website. You should also check your Skype account balance to make sure you don’t have unused credits—after deleting an account, you can’t get those credits back.

If you have subscriptions to services like Microsoft 365, OneDrive, Xbox Live Gold, or an ad-free Outlook.com account, you won’t be able to access them anymore.

If you have subscription or services outside of Microsoft that are associated with this account, we’re unable to cancel those on your behalf.

We strongly recommend that you don’t close this account until you’ve made sure you have no personal or organizational subscriptions or outstanding balances associated with this account.

To cancel most Microsoft subscriptions:

Sign in to Services & subscriptions on the Microsoft account website.

For each paid subscription, go to the subscription you want to cancel and select Payment & billing which appears under the name of the subscription you want to cancel. Select Cancel and follow the remaining instructions.

For any subscription not listed there, go to the service itself (or to the retailer, if you bought the subscription from a retailer) to cancel. For example, if you have a Skype subscription, go to the Skype support page and search for cancellation info.

If the email address associated with your Microsoft account ends in @outlook.com, @hotmail.com, @live.com, or @msn.com, closing the Microsoft account deletes any email stored with it after the 60-day waiting period. During the waiting period, however, your inbox will continue to receive email messages. If the email associated with your Microsoft account is from a different provider like @gmail.com, you can skip this section because your email address won’t be affected.

You can set up an automatic reply to let everyone know that the account is going to be closed, and tell them where to send email to you in the future.

Sign in to your Outlook.com inbox. Select the Options icon, and then select Options.

Under Managing your account, select Sending automated vacation replies and then follow the instructions.

You can also choose Email forwarding under Managing your account to have email you receive sent to a different email address. However, both automatic replies and email forwarding will stop working when your Microsoft account is closed permanently after the 60-day waiting period.

If you’ve used a Microsoft service to store any file or info associated with your closed account, you won’t be able to access it. If there’s anything you want to keep, you must save a copy. For example:

Email, documents, and photos you’ve stored in Outlook.com, Hotmail, or OneDrive.

Personal data you’ve stored on HealthVault.

Purchasing info at Microsoft.com.

Portfolio data on MSN Money.

Messenger contacts added to Skype. For more info about backing up your contact list, search the Skype support page.

Product keys for any products you’ve purchased with this Microsoft account. (Your installed software will continue to work, but you’ll need the product key if you ever want to reinstall the software, or install it on a new device.)

There is some data you can’t save when you close your Microsoft account. You’ll no longer be able to access music you’ve downloaded using an Xbox Music Pass. (Music and videos you’ve purchased outright will still be playable but can’t be transferred to another device.) Your game progress, Gamerscore, and Gamertag on Xbox Live will be lost.

Devices like Windows phones, computers running Windows 8.1 or later, Surface tablets, and Xbox consoles all work best with a Microsoft account. Some of these devices will still work—to a degree—but you won’t be able to use all their apps and features. Before you close your account, consider setting these devices up with a different Microsoft account so that you can still sign in.

If you manage a child’s Microsoft account, their account stays open when yours is closed. However, after your Microsoft account is closed, your child will be stopped when they try to sign in to Xbox, computers running Windows 8 or later, or Windows phones, until they get consent from another parent account.

If you’ve purchased Online Commercial Support using this Microsoft account, you must use any remaining benefits or they’ll be lost. There are two types of support benefit packages available:

Single incident support. Go to My Support Requests and look at your case history.

If your case is closed, you can close your Microsoft account.

If your case is still open, you should wait until it’s closed before you close your account. If you close your account too soon, you won’t be able to get any potential refunds.

Five-pack incident support. Go to My Professional Support 5-packs and look at your case history.

If you’ve used all the cases, or it the package expired, you can close your Microsoft account.

If you’re eligible for a refund, you must request it before you close your Microsoft account.

If you have any remaining or open cases, you should use the rest of your package before you close your Microsoft account. If you don’t use the package before you close the account, you’ll lose any unused cases and you won’t be able to get a refund.

If you’re a developer and you want to retain control of any packages you own on NuGet.org, be sure to first transfer the ownership of these packages to a different account before deleting the existing account. For more information about how to do this, see How to delete my NuGet.org account.

To close your account

When you’re sure you’re ready:

When you’re prompted to sign in to your account, double-check that it’s the account you want to delete. If not, select Sign in with a different Microsoft account. If you’re having trouble signing in to the account you want to close, see When you can’t sign in to your Microsoft account for help fixing the problem.

Check that the page shows the correct Microsoft account, and then select Next.

Read the list, and select the checkboxes to acknowledge you’ve read each item.

In the Select a reason drop-down list, choose the reason you’re closing the account.

Select Mark account for closure.

A note about Skype accounts

Skype accounts must be associated with a Microsoft account before they can be closed. Follow the previous steps to close an account, and sign in with your Skype account. You are prompted to add an email address to create a Microsoft account. Make sure to use an email address that isn’t already associated with a Microsoft account. Once that is complete, you can continue with the steps to close your account.

You can also remove an account from your device. This doesn’t delete the account, but it does remove email and other content associated with the account from your device.

To remove an email account:

Select the Start button, and then select Settings > Accounts > Email & accounts .

Under Accounts used by email, calendar, and contacts, select the account you want to remove, and then select Manage.

Select Delete account from this device.

Select Delete to confirm.

To remove an account used by apps:

Select the Start button, and then select Settings > Accounts > Email & accounts .

Under Accounts used by other apps, select the account you want to remove, and then select Remove.

Select Yes to confirm.

After you close your account

When you select the Mark account for closure button, we wait 60 days before permanently deleting your Microsoft account in case you change your mind or need to access something on the account before it’s gone forever.

During the waiting period, your account is marked for closure but it still exists. If you want to reopen your Microsoft account, just sign in again within that 60 days. We’ll cancel the account closure, and everything will be just as you left it.

If you’re having issues signing in to your Microsoft account, or forgot or want to change your password, see Microsoft account help.

You can’t use your old account name to create a new account after the account-deletion wait period expires.

Permanently Remove Apps from Microsoft Account Library

«Hide App» is riddled with bugs in the Windows Store.

Why is there still no option to permanently remove malignant apps that were installed without permission in earlier releases of Windows 10, especially in Professional Editions and above?

With the exception of the herpes virus, and other similar diseases that lay dormant within the body — bacterial infection are treated by killing the entire population causing the infection. Malignant growths are not partly excised — no surgeon would want remnants to have a chance of taking hold again and spreading the cancer to a healthy system — all disease is removed.

What is stopping your Engineers from adding a function that deletes unwanted entries from a database?

If it is marketing analysis; given the opportunity millions of users would remove certain apps that are in their Library, and the data generated initially for number of installations is already skewed and misleading as certain apps were installed and added to accounts without permission from the user to whom the account is administered by. The data is false.

It will only take one silly mistake, you have accounts automatically download entire Libraries to new devices, and the problem is again annoying the users who have removed the apps to begin with.

Candy Crush should never have been included to an Operating System for Professional Editions..( this is what Home Editions should have as separate installation payloads), only to have accounts tied to the system infected with unwanted products.

How to remove Windows Packaged Apps from Domain Users

I have not found a good way to remove most of my Domain Users’ Windows Packaged Apps.

A. I cannot use AppLocker from GPO, because my users are using Windows 10 Pro.

I believe AppLocker only applies for Windows 10 Enterprise and Education.

B. I cannot use User Policy : «Don’ run specified Windows applications» for packaged apps.

C. I do not want to use User Policy : «Run only specified Windows application» because my Domain Users’ need to use a few of packaged apps

D. Some Windows Packaged Apps can be disabled by editing the folder name in Windows\SystemApps. This method applies to the Computer, and I do not want to do this method on every Computers.

E. I cannot run Powershell script from GPO, because the script will run as System, instead of Domain/Local Administrator or Domain Users

F. I have been trying to use Powershell for the past few days.

I logged in to a Domain User profile, then I run Powershell as Administrator, both as Domain Administrator and Local Administrator.

The domain user has it’s roaming profile disabled.

This is what I did:

1. Run Powershell on a Domain User’s profile as an administrator

2. get-appxpackage -allusers *print3D* | remove-appxpackage

3. To my surprise, the aforementioned script removed the packaged app from the Administrator’s profile, not from the domain user’s profile.

4. Cry a little bit

G. Cry a little bit more, enroll Domain Users as Administrators, manually uninstall Windows Packaged App from every Domain Users, with roaming profile enabled, remove Domain Users from Administrators.

H. Make a petition to ask Microsoft to allow AppLocker on Windows 10 Pro.

Packages are not automatically installed for the user, but if they visit the Store they will be able to add any package you removed, hence the reason why after removing the unwanted packages you need to use GPO to make the Store private and only advertise the packages you want to be available.

I’m not sure I understand the question about roaming profile, but I assume you’re asking if the app will be available on a different computer. No, not unless it was previously installed for that user on that machine.

On the last question, apps that are not pre-installed are usually limited to the user profile (%LocalAppData\Packages%).

Apps that are pre-installed but not part of the Windows 10 core experience are available to all users (%ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps) and store per-user settings in the user profile.

Last apps that have to do with the common Windows 10 experience such as the modern Start menu, Search, and Settings panels (Immersive Control Panel) are system wide and cannot be removed (%windir%\SystemApps) and also store per-user settings in the user profile.