Nickolaj AndersenSince the release of Windows 10, it has been common for organization to try and reduce the footprint of built-in apps (or default apps) in their reference images, or even during bare-metal deployment. Over the years, the community has provided several solutions on how to accomplish this including myself. During this time, I’ve attempted to keep my script updated after each new release of Windows 10. You’ll find the post about the method I’m using in the script and how to use it when creating a reference image here:
Remove Built-in apps when creating a Windows 10 reference image
Now with Windows 10 version 1903 released, it’s time for another update for the remove built-in apps script.
Microsoft is currently investigating an issue involving removal of built-in apps in Windows 10 version 1809 that’s occurring on systems with fast disks, such as NVMe hard drives. The issue results in random freezing when attempting to run a script like this during an online phase. Initial testing of Windows 10 version 1903 is proving better than 1809, however there’s no official statement yet and debugging results are still being analyzed.
Download script
I’ve made the script available on our GitHub repository along with all the other scripts that we’ve shared, and it’s available on the following URL:
What’s new
- During initial analysis of Windows 10 version 1903 (build 18362), it seems that there’s no new built-in apps that should be added for white-listing in the list of this script.
Using the script
Reference the previous instructions from the original post mentioned above. I highly encourage you to also implement the solution at the bottom from Johan’s blog about how to turn of the automatic app updates from the Windows Store. If you intend to use this script for bare-metal deployment using e.g. ConfigMgr, that’s also supported. Simply execute the script after the operating system has been applied after the Setup Windows and ConfigMgr step.
Below are a few screenshots of how I’m using this script to remove the built-in apps along with Johan’s scripts when creating a reference image using MDT:
Here’s one from when you enable the app updates from Windows Store at the end before creating the WIM file:
And when using the script in ConfigMgr, here’s an example of how that could look:
Mattias Melkersen
Rudy Ooms
Ben Whitmore
I’ve been looking for a proper script to finally remove a lot of these default apps in the appropriate way and stumbled across yours. Thank you! I can’t wait to use this in my builds. Now to go look at some of the other things you’ve made.
Have been using your script for a while now, seemed to be doing the job till we went to 1809 as our base image, then started getting the random freeze issue.
Google showed you had released this new version, which seemed to fix the issue, but iv just been imaging a test laptop and it hung on removing the people center for an hour and i ended up killing it once i came back from lunch.
you had any further issues with the freezing problem ?
Hi Aaron,
From the reports I’ve heard from Microsoft, they can’t reproduce this on an 1809 before January (2019) Cumulative Update, but only after (don’t remember if the latest patch fixes this). Windows 10 version 1903 doesn’t seem to have this issue, not from my tests either. That’s all I know at this point.
Regards,
Nickolaj
Just wanted to provide an update; we were able to capture the freezing issue in procmon and have provided the logs to Microsoft. They have confirmed existence of a bug with a fix coming by August, tentatively.
Have you heard/seen anything more about the freezing issue? We’ve run into it ourselves on a number of machines.
Just wanted to provide an update; we were able to capture the freezing issue in procmon and have provided the logs to Microsoft. They have confirmed existence of a bug with a fix coming by August, tentatively.
Hello Nickolaj,
Thanks for the great work. Can you tell me why the script keeps some built-in apps that are not listed in the whitelist. I still have the Candy Crush apps, solitaire and other apps after running the script.
Thanks
Hi Eric,
That’s not built-in apps, that’s just links to the store apps. This script will not remove such things, as you need to disable Consumer Experience explained here:
https://www.windowsmanagementexperts.com/disabling-windows-10-consumer-experience/disabling-windows-10-consumer-experience.htm
Regards,
Nickolaj
Hi Nickolaj, can you please provide more information regarding the statement “Microsoft is currently investigating an issue involving removal of built-in apps in Windows 10 version 1809 that’s occurring on systems with fast disks, such as NVMe hard drives. The issue results in random freezing when attempting to run a script like this during an online phase. Initial testing of Windows 10 version 1903 is proving better than 1809, however there’s no official statement yet and debugging results are still being analyzed.” ?
We are currently experiencing this issue with our 1809 image when deploying in an OSD TS from SCCM straight from Windows VLSC media.
Thanks for everything you do, btw – your site is a great resource.
Long story short, I never really received an official statement or anything, only that it now works in 1903 basically 🙂
Regards,
Nickolaj
It seems like its fixed if you DISM in update August 17, 2019—KB4512534 (OS Build 17763.720) the fix is noted
Addresses an issue that causes Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM) to intermittently stop responding while deprovisioning some preinstalled apps using the Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM).
Hi Nickolaj,
I tested your script on the Win10 Pro 1809 workstation.
Script ran find and checked the log and it says all the built-in apps are removed exception of the whitelist apps.
I ran the all user installed built-in apps package commandlet in PS and all the built-in apps seems to be still installed still.
What am I doing wrong? Can this script be executed after imaged?
If you execute it after, the user that you logged in with will still have the apps. It’s recommended to use during deployment.
Regards,
Nickolaj