Hot Take Uninstalling Windows apps doesn't always mean they're fully gone

[Parkinsond]

Uninstalling Windows apps seems straightforward enough – you click Uninstall, and the app is gone, right? Well, that’s not always true, at least not for apps packaged in Microsoft's MSIX format, which is the technology behind the Microsoft Store apps.

Traditional installers, like the classic MSI format (short for Microsoft Installer, the technology behind most traditional Windows program installers for decades), work the way you'd expect. Uninstalling deletes the binaries, removes directories, cleans up registry entries, and clears out anything the app left behind. But MSIX is different.

For MSIX apps, Windows breaks an app's lifecycle into four separate steps:

• Stage, which places the app's files on disk
• Register, which connects the app to your specific user account
• Deregister, which disconnects it from your account
• Destage, which actually deletes the files from disk

Now, when you click the Uninstall button to delete a Windows app, it calls an API method called RemovePackageAsync (just so there's no confusion, it’s not called “Uninstall” internally), and Windows initially uses it to Deregister the app. Destage, the part that actually deletes anything, only happens if the system determines nothing else still needs those files. Still, if the system determines that the app isn’t referenced anywhere, it will automatically proceed to destage it and remove it for good.

So, if the system thinks an app is needed somewhere else, it will keep it internally. For example, if another user account on the same machine still has that app registered, removing it from your account only disconnects it from you. You won’t see it anywhere, including Start Menu shortcuts, or in the apps list, but it will still be there.

So, from your perspective, the app looks gone. From the system's perspective, it may not be gone at all, it's just no longer yours to see. This may be noticeable when you see that an app you “uninstalled” doesn't seem to have freed up as much storage space as you expected.

https://www.neowin.net/reports/uninstalling-windows-apps-doesnt-always-mean-theyre-fully-gone/

 

[Marko :)]

Wanna see how many leftovers from previous software installations there are on your PC? Go to %AppData% and check Low, LocalLow and Roaming folders. Then check %ProgramData%. These folders contain all saved data from all applications. Software uninstallers usually don't delete those in case you decide to install the software again at some point in the future. It's worth to check %ProgramFiles% as well because some uninstallers don't even delete files from the most important location.

Then, use Autoruns tool; it will show you all the drivers you have installed, services, tasks—everything.

Note: deleting random files and folders from mentioned locations will completely delete and reset programs installed and in rare cases corrupt the installation requiring you to install the software again. Be careful to delete only files and folders from programs you're not using anymore. In case you delete something you shouldn't, restore deleted files/folders from the Recycling Bin.

Autoruns is even more dangerous tool than just deleting data. Disabling or deleting wrong entry can make system unstable and with limited functionality. If you just disable the wrong entry, enable it again. But if you delete the wrong entry, you'll have to reinstall software/driver again. In some cases, reinstallation of Windows may be necessary.

 

[lokamoka820]

While this is true for Microsoft pre-installed apps, you can verify this by using a tool like "WizTree" to scan your system and look for the "WindowsApps" folder. If you do so, you will discover that the main apps are still present. This folder is a protected directory on Windows that houses Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps and user-shared files, and third party uninstallers are unable to remove its contents while they are detecting them because access to or modification of its contents is restricted to prevent malware and system problems.

However, the benefits of removing them include reducing background activity on your device's resources and removing unnecessary disk writes when those apps update periodically (some of them, like the Windows Photos app, have sizes of over 800 MB). For these reasons, it is still a good idea to remove apps you don't need.