Provisioned apps in Windows are applications that are pre-installed with the operating system and are available to all users who log into the system. Sometimes, administrators may want to remove these apps to streamline the system or reduce bloatware. The Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage cmdlet in PowerShell allows you to remove these provisioned apps.

Understanding Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage

The Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage cmdlet is used to remove AppX packages from a Windows image. This can be useful in environments where you want to deploy a clean image without certain pre-installed applications.

Prerequisites

• Administrative privileges on the machine.
• PowerShell access.

Examples

Example 1: List Provisioned Packages

Before removing any packages, you may want to list all provisioned packages to see what is installed.

Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online

This command will list all provisioned packages in the currently running Windows image.

Example 2: Remove a Specific Provisioned Package

To remove a specific provisioned package, you need to know its PackageName. You can get this from the list generated by the previous command.

Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online -PackageName Microsoft.MicrosoftOfficeHub_18.1910.12832.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe

This command will remove the specified package from the Windows image.

Example 3: Remove Multiple Provisioned Packages

If you want to remove multiple packages, you can use a script to do so.

$packages = @(
    "Microsoft.MicrosoftOfficeHub_18.1910.12832.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe",
    "Microsoft.SkypeApp_14.33.41.0_neutral_~_kzf8qxf38zg5c"
)

foreach ($package in $packages) {
    Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online -PackageName $package
}

This script will iterate through the list of packages and remove each one from the Windows image.

Example 4: Remove All Provisioned Packages

To remove all provisioned packages, you can combine Get-AppxProvisionedPackage with Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage.

Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | ForEach-Object {
    Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online -PackageName $_.PackageName
}

This command will remove all provisioned packages from the Windows image.

Important Notes

• Removing provisioned packages will not remove the apps from existing user profiles. It will only prevent new profiles from having these apps installed.
• For removing apps from existing user profiles, you can use the Remove-AppxPackage cmdlet.

Conclusion

The Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage cmdlet is a powerful tool for administrators looking to customize their Windows images by removing unwanted provisioned apps. By following the examples provided, you can efficiently manage the apps included in your Windows deployments.