Customization :: Removing Unwanted Apps From All PCs?
Feb 19, 2016
We're looking at using Windows 10 at our school. I've got a few for testing. One of the things I'm trying to figure out how to do is remove things like the XBOX tile. Things we don't want students in during a class etc. Anyway I can't seem to find a way of removing them. I've found several pages listing powershell commands but they don't work. At least not for the xbox tile. Also I need a way of doing this for all PC's group policy or registry so I don't have to do it one by one.
I'm trying to clean up the Users on my husband's computer since being locked out via the Microsoft Account when even after changing the password online in the correct place still got Password Incorrect message on login. All good now using Local Account.
Using netplwiz, his account showed the following:
Administrator HomeUsers; Administrators His-name HomeUsers; Administrators HomeGroupUser$ HomeUsers (even though the network has NO Homegroup now) UpdatusUser HomeUsers (used for NVIDIA updates so probably OK)
So I deleted the HomeGroupUser$ account.
This is a lot different to mine which just shows one account: My name Administrators. His Administrator account may be the one I enabled to access the computer during the lockout though I did go back afterwards and re-set it to /active:no. Should I leave this there?
What I really want to do is to remove the Microsoft Account. When I went to Settings etc and clicked on Remove Account, it said if I remove this account it will remove email and all content associated with it. There also seems to be an account listed under Email. This email address is not actually an Outlook email address as it is a private email address I set up from his website. He doesn't use the Mail facility on W10. So I imagine that closing the MS Account will in no way impact on this email address used via Thunderbird and the removal relates only to the USE of this address for his MS Account.
It's a simple question, with probably a more complicated answer: How do I remove these two buttons, as I think they are ugly as OS X (ok, maybe not that ugly)?
UNPIN UNWANTED ICONS FROM TASK BAR I just upgraded two systems to Win 10 this weekend but am having trouble finding out how to remove unwanted icons from the task bar.
DesktopDownloadsPicturesDocumentsMusic
These take up space I prefer to use for desired icons. I don't need or want them there but there is no "un-pin" option for those. I have searched and all I can find are results to hide the entire task bar or instructions on how to add to the taskbar but not a word on how to remove those unwanted items.
I would also like to know how I can un-pin one specific drive which is encrypted so it is not available on taskbar...it always wants me to format it! Better to hide from taskbar. Still needs to remain visible to encryption program of course.
As we all know, the classical Windows XP has a tool.... XpLitePro ... to remove all unwanted software and services you wish to have deleted. XpLite could both remove hidden programs/services which are not visible in configuration screen/ remove programs section
Question: Does Windows 10 have such a tool already? I can't hardly wait to remove unwanted stuff..
I removed the Windows Apps (3D Builder, Groovy etc.) using PowerShell and Remove-AppxPackage / Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage on our Windows 10 machines (64bit, some Home, some Pro) at home.
This worked satisfying enough, but for some (very few) local users the start menu entries for those apps are not removed. I refer to "All Apps" (the A-Z list of all apps).
Situation is like this: application is removed (checked with Get-Appxpackage in Powershell)start menu still refers to the Windows Apps with the text entry; it does not show the icon, but a coloured rectangle (sized like an icon)application cannot be started through this icon (as it is uninstalled)
(Screenshot shows the Maps (german: Karten) and Contacts (german: Kontakte) "icons")
I see people wanting to add stuff to the right click, I'd like to remove some stuff. When you pop up the right click menu, for some folders it's HUGE, and it makes it difficult to find the stuff you'd actually want to use.
pintostartscreen - I'd like this gone from the Recycle Bin. I keep hitting it when emptying, it's just annoying.
Scan with Windows Defender - I'd like this gone everywhere.
Include in Library - Ditto for this one, don't use it.
Cast to Device - Yep, useless to me as well.
Shared Folder Synchronization - Never use it, be gone!
Is there some 3rd party utility to manage all these additions?
There are also applications that stick extra stuff in there that I never need, it would be great to manage those as well.
My wife has a Win7 desktop machine that she uses for stuff brought home from work, but also keeps a collection of photos that she posts to Facebook, etc.
Rather than let her deal with any fallout from an automatic Win10 upgrade While I wasn't around, I did it manually myself from a 1511 ISO. Apart from failing to carry over the installed Intel HD Graphics drivers (a common occurrence), things went fine.
Last night she was using the machine, and paused for dinner while writing a lecture. From the other room we heard several barrages of musical chimes coming from the office. Each time I ran into her workroom and saw nothing new on the screen.
After the 5th volley, I looked more closely; checking the notifications icon in the systray, and noticed that it had flagged new notifications. What were they? "Look at the photo album I created for you!!!". Five times. Geez.
How to turn off this behavior, delete the "automatic" and unwanted albums, and prevent this from happening again?
Somehow I managed to have Firefox start at system login and now I don't want it to do so.I've checked Task Manager and it isn't there.I've checked usersappDataRoamingMicrosoftWindowsStartMenuProgramsStartup and it isn't there.
When I open File Explorer there are a number of items listed in the left pane. Is there a way to remove some of them that I do not use like Videos and Music? Also at the bottom, after Network is Homegroup. I do not use Homegroup. Can I delete it from this list? I have other computers that do not list Homegroup so why does this one list it?
After disabling and uninstalling Cortana, Edge and others as well as Search I ended up with 2 dead icons in the All apps menu one for Search and one for Edge. When I drag the Search icon to the desktop it's named as:
@{Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_1.4.8.176_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewyms-resource--Microsoft.Windows.Cortana-resources-TileDisplayName} but not sure I want to start deleting various reg entries where this shows. I also tried in all the usual places where the shortcuts are supposed to be but nothing worked and the icons are still there so how they can be removed if at all. It's more of a cosmetic problem as I have no issues with Windows otherwise...
Recently my PC has begun shutting down on its own, at about the same time daily. I have seen this problem both before my upgrade to Windows 10 (from Win 7) and after. I have looked but cannot find any task commands set...
I am running windows 10 on my pc an it gets automatically turned off if I don't use it for couple of hours. I have attached events file. p events.zip 373.65KB 7 downloads
I put my Asus K54C back to O.O.T.B. factory settings by tapping F9 on a reboot and it went through a 'EMS settings' and restored the whole computer, took about an hour. As we all know there are loads of programs that are unwanted and just wastes space. Advertising, games and just junk basically.
I elected to install windows 10 and opted for the 'keep nothing' when it came to the programs that I wanted to keep. Just a complete install of windows 10 'only'.It took everything of, even the factory settings for Asus programs that was on my desktop etc. My HD went from about 45 gig to just 15 gig but there are still programs on C:Drive such as the 'esupport' from Asus that is still there and its a whopper more than 2 gig in size.
My first question is: How do I get rid of these programs that are on C: Drive without upsetting the laptop's running (registry etc). These are not in the 'programs and features' where you can uninstall them safely. Through past experience many years ago I did 'delete' them thinking I was doing good but totally messed up the laptop's running completely. So how I can take them of safely? My second question is: In my C:Drive there have been folders added that was not put there by me (I don't think so anyways) such as,
1. $SysReset. (I think it is a dollar sign at the start of the name, not sure) in this folder is 'Logs' and it has SetupAct_offline.log as a text Document. 2. Also 'ESD' on the drive but with nothing in it at all.
There are a couple of folders such as 'AsusVibeData' and the 'esupport' that was left behind when windows 10 was installed.I just want to get rid of these folders that are taking up so...... much space safely and find out how to do it.
So you know how it's possible to move your shortcuts into folders and rename said folders on regular "desktop" apps? Is this possible with Windows Store "Metro" apps as well?
What I'd really like to do, for example, is have a folder called "Games" where I put all of the games I've gotten from the store. Similar to how Office 2013 is its own folder and you don't HAVE to have Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc on their own in the start menu.
However, opening up the Explorer folder with the Start Menu only shows my "desktop apps" plus a couple choice Metro apps (like Settings)... none of the others.
I updated my HP Pavilion laptop to Windows 10 last weekend. Ever since then, I've had a problem any time I'm typing. I can't seem to type for more than 5 seconds without a left click happening on its own (sometimes it's a right click, oddly), which usually either opens a menu, moves where in the document/webpage I'm typing, or stops my typing altogether.
my ASUS X54C Computer, powered by Windows 10. My conversion was smooth and seemed to function well but after Chrome 47 was rolled out in late Nov/early December, I had so much trouble, that I temporarily switched to Firefox as a browser. Lately, it seemed to be functioning well and I went back to Chrome. Last week, without warning, my printer was switched to offline and running the Windows Diagnostic just produced an ERROR message. Today, I tried to install a new printer which my computer did not recognize so I called a techie. It seems that an unknown IP address had installed itself on my hard drive and things were inadvertently being shut down without my knowledge.
That has been corrected/removed (and a McAfee Virus Scan has so far not revealed any issues) but here is my question: I recently sent about 135 emails through Eventbrite - could any of those emails addresses been compromised by coming from my computer or do I assume that Eventbrite's system is rigorous enough to weed out any unwanted passengers?
After the one month of using Windows 10, will the old Windows folder be deleted along with Windows live mail?If so, is there a way to preserve WLM, I really prefer to keep using this program.I do not know how this contact got into my address book, but I can not delete it.It is the echo sound service from skype. All other contacts can be deleted with a right click and delete, but not this one. I suppose it got added by installing skype.
I have recently built my own PC. During the initial setup process my friend create a partition on my ssd. I would like to remove the partition without losing anything.
I have a 250 GB SSD and a 1TB HDD. My OS and personal data is on the SSD. I want to keep everything where it is at or at least be able to put it back.
is there any way to move EVERYTHING to my HDD, clean the SSD, then move it back.
Whenever I start Windows 10, early on in the boot cycle I get a Firefox Window. As the system continues to initialize the Firefox window slowly come to life, though sometimes not fully.
I've checked all the obvious places, Task Manager, c;usersuser_nameAppDataRoaming
I must have put this in for some reason but can't think of why / how.
I have gone through the synaptic touch pad settings several times and and I still have to use cat paw touches on the keyboard and touch pad to keep the window from randomly zooming. Also the search window keeps popping up randomly and I have to tap the touch pad to remove it.
I am loving Windows 10 and I want to remove Windows XP from my dual-boot configuration (and remove the whole dual-boot thing completely) but it also acts as the system partition, so I guess it's not as straight-forward as I had hoped. Is there a way to make my Windows 10 partition the system partition?
