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I have used windows 10 without problems for some weeks now on my office PC at work. I'm logging in with an active directory user.

I have recently upgraded to Windows 10.

Yesterday i encountered an error, that prohibited me from using any Windows 10 app, not even the calculator. With the permissions of our admins i reinstalled windows 10 today and thought it would work out. However, the starmenu is being quite frustrating since then.

If i log in with a local user on the machine, everything works fine. With my AD account, the startmenu is "broken".

View of start menu tiles (default)

As you can see, there are two entries without decent icons and no text. Clicking on of those opens up the Windows Store.

Further, i cannot find ANY installed program via the start menu search. If i type "paint", the search only offers to search the web. Entering "mspaint" offers running the command "mspaint", which of course will open up Paint as intended. However, other tools (like TeamViewer, Visual Studio, etc) cannot be found via the search, even if they appear in the "All Apps" list.

I have tried every solution from this thread, without any change.

The strangest thing is, that it seems to be account-bound. The local user or freshly created local users work perfectly, my AD user does not.

EDIT:

I found an article that explains the problems i have. Like i described, i used every solution there is for problems with apps. In Windows 1511, the "magic powershell command" to re-register apps, destroys the apps irrevertably...

Community
  • 1
Alexander Mills
  • 45

3 Answers3

1

PowerShell command with the All Users option may work for Windows 10.

EDIT: Reorganized my post for added clarity.

WindowsApps folder permissions at %ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps may prevent you from successfully re-register existing Universal Apps. The first step is to grant yourself rights.

Command Prompt - Run as Administrator
Start > Run or Search > Command or CMD > Right-click and click Run as Admin.

PowerShell - Run as Administrator
Start > Run or Search > PowerShell > Right-click and click Run as Admin.

Using an Administrator Command Prompt

icacls "%ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps" /save "%TEMP%\WindowsApps.acl" /Q
takeown /F "%ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps"
icacls "%ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps" /grant "%username%":F /Q

Optionally you could add any other specific users other than the Current User.

icacls "%ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps" /grant "EXACTUSERNAME":F /Q

Finally, restore ownership rights to TrustedInstaller using this command.

icacls "%ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps" /setowner "NT Service\TrustedInstaller"

Next, temporarily Unrestrict the PowerShell environment to run it.

Using an Administrator PowerShell Prompt

Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted (use before if necessary)
Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned (use afterwards if you run Unrestricted)

Fix All Universal Apps and use the All Users option.

Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml”}

The command above attempts to re-register all Universal Apps. You could also re-register Universal Apps individually as outlined below.

Fix Calculator App (see version path in %ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps)

Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.WindowsCalculator_COPYYOURSPECIFICVERSIONPATHHERE\appxmanifest.xml"

Fix Windows Store App (see version path in %ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps)

Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register $env:ProgramFiles\WindowsApps\Microsoft.WindowsStore_COPYYOURSPECIFICVERSIONPATHHERE\AppxManifest.xml

Final tip:
If there is a working clean-install v1511 instance or a successfully upgraded v1511 instance you can also copy the contents of C:\Program Files\WindowsApps from the good instance to the bad one. Do not overwrite, simply allow any missing components to copy without replacing any existing components.

The steps above have worked for me on several Windows 10 instances that we experienced problems on post in-place upgrading to version 1511 build 10586.

Regardless, I do not blame anyone who wants to wait for an official fix from Microsoft.

Ken
  • 26
1

None of the above solved my broken Modern Apps issue.

I had to perform the following:

  • Take ownership of the C:\Program Files\WindowsApps folder (as written by Ken)
  • Delete entire contents of C:\Program Files\WindowsApps folder
  • Perform in-place Upgrade/Repair Install

Things I tried that failed:

  • Ken's entire repair process
  • Upgrading to Slow Ring Builds
  • Upgrading to Fast Ring Builds
  • In-place Upgrade/Repair Install with broken apps still in C:\Program Files\WindowsApps

I'm not sure why my issue didn't resolve itself with the solutions above, but I hope that my solution may help others that also have difficulty with this issue.

karel
  • 13,706
0

I fixed the issues with help of the domain admins. The profile was completly wiped and reset to zero. After log in, Windows created a fresh user profile and the start menu search now works again and 60% of preinstalled apps (better than before)

Alexander Mills
  • 45