Appx’s are a method used for application install, first delivered in Windows 8.1. There are a lot of builtins which take live system resources in hidden fashion, usually not showing up in Task Manager very much or at all. And there have been a lot of changes in this over recent years. Here’s an overview of items for cleanup as of this writing. One can free a lot of resources on machines this way.
The first thing to know is that many appx’s are “provisioned”, they are embedded in the current (“online”) DISM image, and will be automatically activated whenever a new user profile is made. To get a list of these:
Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | Sort-Object | ft DisplayName, PackageName
To remove three of these that I like to have gone in business desktops:
Remove-AppXProvisionedPackage -Online -PackageName Microsoft.YourPhone_1.23082.131.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.YourPhone -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Remove-AppXProvisionedPackage -Online -PackageName Microsoft.BingWeather_4.53.52331.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.BingWeather -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Remove-AppXProvisionedPackage -Online -PackageName Microsoft.ZuneVideo_2019.22091.10041.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.ZuneVideo -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers
You’ll notice that we’re removing the provisioning by long name, and removing the live copies in Windows profiles by short name. At this writing, this is what has worked most reliably for me. Obviously you may want to alter the list to site and user preferences.
Many have not been provisioned, but still have been very good to get rid of. Do bear in mind that not all of these will be in every machine, and so errors may be thrown. And some may be provisioned, and need the above special treatment. And a few cannot be removed even from provisioning, e.g., the items in cooperation with the CBS company, you’ll see them in the lists.
Get-AppxPackage -Name MicrosoftWindows.Client.WebExperience -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.XboxApp" -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.XboxGameOverlay" -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.XboxIdentityProvider" -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.Xbox.TCUI" -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.XboxSpeechToTextOverlay" -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.WindowsCommunicationsApps" -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.BingFinance" -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.BingNews" -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.BingSports" -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.BingWeather" -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.Advertising.Xaml" -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage "*Microsoft.Skype*" -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.XboxApp" -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.XboxGameOverlay" -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.XboxIdentityProvider" -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.Xbox.TCUI" -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.XboxSpeechToTextOverlay" -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers Get-AppxPackage "Microsoft.WindowsCommunicationsApps" -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers