[Windows 8 Development and Hacking] Rakeesh_j:
EDIT: Found a faster and cleaner way!

You guys who run tablets that have uber tiny amounts of storage (e.g. 32gb dell venue 8 pro) might want to do this as it will free up space used by apps that you probably don't even touch. You can always just install any you want to keep from the Windows store, but personally I think 8 apps are all crap (except Netflix.)

Click start > type 'powershell' (no quotes) > press ctrl+shift+enter > (say yes if it asks)

Type the following:

Get-AppXProvisionedPackage -online | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -online

Get-AppXPackage | Remove-AppxPackage

Tada! No more useless built in Windows apps taking up disk space, and new user accounts don't start with a cluttered start menu.

If you're like me and you keep an autoconfigure batch script for new installations, you can accomplish the above with the following lines:

powershell -Command "Get-AppXProvisionedPackage -online | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -online"

powershell -Command "Get-AppXPackage | Remove-AppxPackage"

Guessing this works with RT as well, but it's a sad OS that I wouldn't ever buy, so I can't test.

(Old post sticking around for archival purposes)

I never use these things. I don't like apps that force full screen when it is really unnecessary. I guess it makes sense for a touch screen, but for a desktop this is downright stupid, especially when you have a big monitor and like working with multiple things at once. Anyways, I noticed that these take up a gig of space, and I am on an SSD, so space is precious. Sadly, uninstalling them from the start menu doesn't actually delete them, in fact it's really no different at all from using the unpin from start option.

Simply navigating to that folder to delete them doesn't work. First you'll claim ownership via the UI, and then it will at least let you browse the folder. I tried taking it a step further and using the universal "take all" method from an admin prompt:

d:\windows\program files\> icacls windowsapps\* /T /C /Grant Users:(OI)(CI)(MA)

It failed. So I figured, let's try rebooting to the command console and do the same thing. Success! Well, not really.

If you type del windowsapps, it pretends to delete them, but it doesn't actually do so. Microsoft is clever, they really went out of their way to make sure you keep them and like them! So I took it a step further, I tried the same thing from WinPE by booting from the install disk, hitting the repair button, and navigating to the command shell. Same result as above. Microsoft REALLY wants to make sure they remain intact.

Fortunately though, I have an ace up my sleeve. I booted a linux ISO, mounted the partition, and did an rm -rf WindowsApps, and lo and behold, its gone! You see, linux doesn't really care if you keep metro apps, it just does whatever you tell it to.

By the way, I did this inside of a VM just to make sure that it doesn't break anything, and so far, it doesn't appear to do so. The apps still remain in the start menu (if you didn't unpin them) but launching them just returns right back to the start menu. No worries, just unpin them and it will stay out of sight and out of mind.

Something confuses me though...the live tiles for these apps still actually work. At least, the live tiles for news, finance, and travel still work, but launching the app just drops you back to the start menu. My guess is that the live tile portion of the app runs in another process. Somebody who is more familiar with WinRT could chime in here. Also, the useless windows store and some important things like the desktop app and the "pc settings" app (aka metro control panel) remains intact, so no issues there.

Anyways, I'd like to figure out a way to delete these while windows is still running, that way I can automate doing so when I install windows. Any ideas? My current thought is to remove them from the install.wim, but it's kind of a PITA and often something goes wrong when I try to muck with that.