Posted on by Daniel

Provisioned Packages (Provisioned Apps) in Windows 10 Pro

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Updated on 24th October 2017

By default Microsoft Windows 10 Pro ships with a number of provisioned app packages. Whenever a user signs into a computer for the first time, Windows will register (read: installed) all provisioned apps in the newly created user profile.

For listing the provisioned app packages on your computer, use the PowerShell Cmdlet Get-AppxProvisionedPackage.

Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | Select DisplayName | Sort DisplayName

List of Provisioned App Packages

This list provides a reference of each provisioned app package in Windows 10 Pro along the name of the app and a link to the Windows Store.

DisplayName App Name & Store Link v1607 v1703 v1709
Microsoft.3DBuilder 3D Builder ✓ ✓ †
Microsoft.BingWeather MSN Weather ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller App Installer ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.GetHelp Get Help ✓
Microsoft.Getstarted Microsoft Tips ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.Messaging Microsoft Messaging ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.Microsoft3DViewer Mixed Reality Viewer ✓ ✓
Microsoft.MicrosoftOfficeHub Get Office ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.MicrosoftSolitaireCollection Microsoft Solitaire Collection ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.MicrosoftStickyNotes Microsoft Sticky Notes ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.MSPaint Paint 3D ✓ ✓
Microsoft.Office.OneNote OneNote ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.OneConnect Paid Wi-Fi & Cellular ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.People Microsoft People ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.Print3D Print 3D ✓
Microsoft.SkypeApp Skype ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.StorePurchaseApp Store Purchase App1 ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.Wallet Wallet1 ✓ ✓
Microsoft.Windows.Photos Microsoft Photos ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.WindowsAlarms Windows Alarms & Clock ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.WindowsCalculator Windows Calculator ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.WindowsCamera Windows Camera ✓ ✓ ✓
microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps Mail and Calendar ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.WindowsFeedbackHub Feedback Hub ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.WindowsMaps Windows Maps ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.WindowsSoundRecorder Windows Voice Recorder ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.WindowsStore Windows Store ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.Xbox.TCUI Xbox TCUI ✓
Microsoft.XboxApp Xbox ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.XboxGameOverlay Xbox Game Bar ✓ ✓
Microsoft.XboxIdentityProvider Xbox Identity Provider ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.XboxSpeechToTextOverlay Xbox Speech to Text Overlay1 ✓ ✓
Microsoft.ZuneMusic Groove Music ✓ ✓ ✓
Microsoft.ZuneVideo Movies & TV ✓ ✓ ✓

† removed/retired
1 unavailable in App Store

Personal Recommendation for Current Release

In a business environment it is likely that most of the provisioned apps that come with the standard Windows 10 Pro image are not needed or unwanted. If you are uncertain whether it is safe to remove a provisioned app, or whether you should do so, please find my personal recommendation for a small business below. This list always reflects the current version of Windows 10 Pro at the time of the last edit of this article.

  • Microsoft.3DBuilder
    Safe to remove.
  • Microsoft.BingWeather
    Safe to remove. I prefer to keep the app. A good amount of my users appreciate using the app and many have them pinned to Start. Also, the live tile looks nice.
  • Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller
    Safe to remove, unless you sideload custom or LOB applications.
  • Microsoft.Getstarted
    Safe to remove.
  • Microsoft.Messaging
    Safe to remove, especially if don’t allow your users to link their private Microsoft accounts to their user profile.
  • Microsoft.MicrosoftOfficeHub
    Remove it. This is just an advertisement for Microsoft Office 365 and useless regardless of whether you already use Office or plan to use Office in the future.
  • Microsoft.MicrosoftSolitaireCollection
    Safe to remove. Unless your company has a policy against games, I would prefer to keep it. It’s nice to offer some distraction during a users lunch break. (Although I always prefer to take a walk in the park, before sitting at my computer yet another hour every day ?).
  • Microsoft.MicrosoftStickyNotes
    Safe to remove.
  • Microsoft.Office.OneNote
    Safe to remove. Especially if your company uses Microsoft Office since it brings the full version of OneNote.
  • Microsoft.OneConnect
    Safe to remove.
  • Microsoft.People
    Safe to remove. Especially if you use Microsoft Outlook. Some users may get confused between Outlook Contacts (which can be shared within the company) and People app contacts.
  • Microsoft.SkypeApp
    Safe to remove. Especially if your company uses an Office suite that includes Skype for Business.
  • Microsoft.StorePurchaseApp
    Safe to remove. Only used in apps that support in-app purchases. Since we don’t want this in our company, I prefer to just remove it.
  • Microsoft.Windows.Photos
    Keep it, unless you use a 3rd-party application to view image files.
  • Microsoft.WindowsAlarms
    Safe to remove.
  • Microsoft.WindowsCalculator
    Keep it, unless you feast off your users tears or rage.
  • Microsoft.WindowsCamera
    Safe to remove on Desktops and Workstations. I would keep it on portable Computers.
  • microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps
    Safe to remove. This is the Mail & Calendar app. Definitely remove it if you use Microsoft Outlook or a 3rd-party mail application. People will get confused and if you use Office 365 I guarantee at least one user will configure their email account on it and cause you some amount of headache.
  • Microsoft.WindowsFeedbackHub
    Safe to remove.
  • Microsoft.WindowsMaps
    Safe to remove. At the moment I prefer to keep it since it has at least some amount of utility.
  • Microsoft.WindowsSoundRecorder
    Safe to remove.
  • Microsoft.WindowsStore
    I am still uncertain about this app. In our company we don’t want users to use the store, but I don’t know what consequences this might have. I decided to keep it for now.
  • Microsoft.XboxApp
    Remove it. Definitely not needed on company computers even if you decide to keep Solitaire.
  • Microsoft.XboxIdentityProvider
    Remove it. Definitely not needed on company computers even if you decide to keep Solitaire.
  • Microsoft.ZuneMusic
    Keep it, unless you use a 3rd-party application to play audio files.
  • Microsoft.ZuneVideo
    Keep it, unless you use a 3rd-party application to play video files.

24 Replies to “Provisioned Packages (Provisioned Apps) in Windows 10 Pro”

  2. I have ran a bunch of these commands to remove Windows Modern Apps. I used the Get-AppxPackage -allusers PackageFullName | Remove-AppxPackage with the assumption that is what would happen. After running sysprep (this is my master imaging VM) and powering the VM back on, I had to go through the initial MS setup (out of box experience) and it forced me to create a new user account. OK, fine, well when I logged in with the 2nd user account all of the apps I removed using my main local account prior to sysprep are still on here for any new user that logs in.
    Please advise. I need to use this build to create my Win10 imaging utility and I do not want to have to run all these powershell commands everytime I build a new machine and log in with a new user.

    Reply

    1. Tim, Get-AppxPackage gets a list of the app packages that are installed in a particular user profile. You can use -AllUsers to lists app packages for all user accounts on the computer. However, you can only remove installed app packages from the user account you are logged on with. You find more information about removing apps on my other blog post: https://blog.danic.net/?p=21

      Reply

    2. Why don’t you just write a script? It would be simple to write in notepad++, save as a Powershell script and then run. Or I would set up a windows10 box exactly how you would like and save that as an Image and then use your image to setup your new system.

      Reply

  3. get-appxpackage MicrosoftSolitaireCollection | Remove-AppxPackage will remove from current user,
    Get-AppXProvisionedPackage -online | WHere-Object {$_.packagename -like “*MicrosoftSolitaireCollection*”} | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -online will remove the provisioning so that NEW profiles wont have them available either.

    Reply

  4. 1703 adds a few more XBOX ones to the fray – Microsoft.XboxSpeechToTextOverlay Microsoft.XboxIdentityProvider Microsoft.XboxGameOverlay

    Versions > 1703 should remember what provisioning you have killed.

    Oh and if you accidentally remove a provisioned app and you want it back then you CAN add it back. You need the “Windows 10 Inbox Apps” ISO (available from VLSC if you are volume customers, if you aren’t volume customers then I have no idea I’m afraid – I cant imagine it is a hard to find). Then mount the ISO and run:

    Add-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online -PackagePath “X:\amd64fre\Microsoft.WindowsStore_8wekyb3d8bbwe.appxbundle” –LicensePath “X:\amd64fre\Microsoft.WindowsStore_8wekyb3d8bbwe.xml”

    (this adds the store back for example)

    Reply

    1. forgot to add, you will need a “clean” machine to get the “packagename” from, the packagename comes from the Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online command – again these aren’t secret though so any will do. I suspect you will need to use the same build version though.

      Reply

  5. I had opened a ticket with MS on this and here’s what they had me do (summarized)

    Mount the Win10 ISO
    Copy the install.wim to another folder
    Use DISM to mount the install.wim and then run remove-appx commands to get rid of stuff I didn’t want
    Most importantly, you have to do an offline registry edit and add the key “CloudContent” to HKLM\Policies\Microsoft\Windows and create a DWORD entry “DisableWindowsConsumerFeatures” and set the value to 1. This prevents all the consumer apps you’ve removed from automatically streaming back down when a new user logs in.
    Then after committing your changes and unmounting the WIM, you import the install.wim into MDT and then deploy that to a blank VM. Build your image on that blank VM and then sysprep and capture and you’ll be good.

    Mind you, these are highly summarized steps but there should be a good doc online on how to do this.

    Reply

    1. Jeff, did you open a ticket for Windows 10 Enterprise? As far as I know the Pro edition still ignored the “DisableWindowsConsumerFeatures” registry entry.

      Reply

  7. I removed several apps from a Windows 10 1709 image (downloaded from Volume License center). After install I found out that users can’t open the Windows Store (which I wanted to work), I tried to fix the Windows Store and got an error that Microsoft.NET.Native.Runtime.1.4 was missing. I went back and installed a clean image and removed programs one at a time and found that when I removed Microsoft.OneConnect, Microsoft.NET.Native.Runtime.1.4 was also removed. I also noticed that when I removed Microsoft.XboxIdentityProvider, Microsoft.NET.Native.Runtime.1.3 was also removed. I assume this is some kind of bug on Microsoft’s end.

    Reply
  8. Pingback: Windows 10 - AppX Removal Script Update - VirtuallyInclined.com

  9. In my 1709 test deployments, Windows Update (using SCCM) is borked if you remove Store. We’re using Group Policy to disable access instead.

    Reply

  10. Thanks so much! Been looking for a M$oft reference on what is safe to remove but they don’t seem to want people removing anything.

    Reply
  11. Pingback: Remove apps from Windows 10 – scribbleghost

  13. Hi Daniel…..To repeat others – thank you for your informative breakdown of safe and unsafe. I’ve used your info in our own image process.
    Since I’ve started doing v1803 I have checked back a few times to see if you may have updated this. Looking forward to an update soon?
    Appreciate your time and efforts in this.

    Reply

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