Prevent Users from Uninstalling Modern UI Apps in Windows 8

A while back I showed you how to prevent users from installing Modern UI apps on Windows 8 with the Group Policy Editor. There is another setting in the GPE that prevents uninstalling of installed apps. Here’s how to enable it..

Prevent Uninstalling of Modern UI Apps

1. Start Group Policy Editor by typing in gpedit.msc in the Run box, and hit Enter.
2. Navigate down to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Start Menu and Taskbar.
3. In the policy list on the right hand side find a setting called “Prevent users from uninstalling applications from Start”, double click on it.
4. In the properties dialog, select the radio button labeled “Enabled”, then click on the OK button.

That’s it. Now when you right-click on a Start screen tile, the uninstall option will no longer appear.

If you’re not able to see the changes immediately, run the following command in the command prompt:

gpupdate /force