Windows 8 comes pre-installed with around 16 Modern UI apps, and you can download and install as many additional apps as you like from the Windows Store. These applications are easy enough to remove by right clicking on the app tile in the Start Screen and choosing Uninstall. However, if you’d like a geeky command line method, read on.
We are going to use Windows PowerShell to remove the apps. To uninstall them, first we need to find the app’s package name. You can find that manually by going to this path: C:\Program Files\WindowsApps (application folder name is its package name). You’ll find all installed apps in there. “WindowsApps” folder is hidden by default, and you’ll probably have to get ownership of it to view its content.
An easier way to get the package name is using this command: Get-AppxPackage. Open PowerShell with administrator rights and type in the command. This should give you a long list of apps, which includes both built-in apps as well as user installed ones.
PackageFullName value is what we need. To see apps installed by all users on the computer, use this command: Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers.
Now, for uninstalling an app, the syntax is:
Remove-AppxPackage PackageFullName
For example, to uninstall the Dropbox app, the command would be like this:
Remove-AppxPackage C27EB4BA.Dropbox_1.0.0.3_neutral__xbfy0k16fey96
The built-in apps are provisioned, meaning they are staged in the Windows 8 image, so that they are available to each new user profile that’s created on the PC. To remove provisioned apps you have to use remove-AppxProvisionedPackage command, like this:
remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -package Microsoft.BingTravel_1.2.0.145_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe -online
When you run that command, the app is cleanly removed from all locations on your computer, including WindowsApps folder and Start Screen shortcut. For quick re-install at a later time, just go to Windows Store > Your apps section. You’ll find the app in your list of Purchased applications.
This method works on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows 8.