Tag Archives: Software

Removing/Uninstalling Microsoft Store packages via PowerShell

I accidently started Microsoft Photos and it suddenly decided to download and install Photos Media Engine Add-on in the background. Very odd.

Don’t get me wrong Photos a nice application for looking at your pictures, but I don’t use it and I prefer digiKam for viewing my albums if anything. Also JPEGView is much more powerful when viewing individual images.

Anyway, what convinced me to remove it entirely is constantly switching my defaults and now oddly installing the add-on in the background. Especially one that seems to share possible personal pictures over to the internet without consent, but this is just speculation.

Either way, to remove it you can simply go to Settings > Apps, then find Microsoft Photos and click on advanced options to remove it. If that’s not doing the trick, I prefer PowerShell.

Removing packages using PowerShell

Start PowerShell by right clicking on the Start icon on your taskbar. Click PowerShell (Admin) and type the following cmdlet.

get-appxpackage *Microsoft.Windows.Photos* | remove-appxpackage

You can also remove other Microsoft Store Apps this way. For example type the command below which will list all the apps installed:

get-appxpackage

Can also narrow it down to certain keywords, such as all the apps that contain “gaming” within the Name field:

get-appxpackage *gaming*

Then copy the “Name” field exactly as written and replace Microsoft.Windows.Photos from the above example. Making sure to include the *’s.

Removing Xbox/Microsoft Gaming packages

Like mentioned above, if you search *gaming* or *xbox* you’ll find some bloatware that you can remove. I like to remove these.

get-appxpackage *Microsoft.GamingServices* | remove-appxpackage
get-appxpackage *Microsoft.GamingApp* | remove-appxpackage

Removing People Bar feature packages

get-appxpackage *Microsoft.People* | remove-appxpackage
get-appxpackage *Microsoft.Windows.PeopleExperienceHost* | remove-appxpackage

Removing Windows Search package

If like me, you use an alternative search software (Everything by voidtools) you may want to get rid of the Window Search features just to avoid wasting resources and indexing. There is more to it than this so I suggest looking into how to completely turn off indexing also as I did all of that before running this cmdlet so I cannot confirm if this does all of that just yet.

get-appxpackage *Microsoft.Windows.Search* | remove-appxpackage

If you get any permission errors

If you get a 0x80073CFA error and a message saying “This app is part of Windows and cannot be uninstalled on a per-user basis…” well you can stop there as these apps may genuinely be integrated enough to cause issues if you uninstall or you can bypass it and remove it or you can look at other ways, such as using Group Policy to disable or turn them off. These blocks were introduced by Microsoft’s recent Windows 10 updates. See links below for links (some methods may be out of date).

Windows App Cert Kit

If you go to start, and type and run ‘Windows App Cert Kit’ you are able to validate every app installed, sometimes this is useful to also see what apps are actually installed in a more visual way.

Links & References

Software Review: MyPhoneExplorer

Let me introduce you to MyPhoneExplorer, a piece of software that allows you to smoothly transfer files between your computer or laptop and Android device(s). Perfect for someone looking for a more user friendly, less time consuming and powerful way to sync, backup and move files to and from your phone.

The software allows you to connect via WiFi, Bluetooth or your USB connection. There’s even extra features like screen mirroring (being able to see your phone on your computer, useful for projecting things to your screen). A powerful contacts management, backing up your SMS messages.

How does it work?

Once you install MyPhoneExplorer on your phone then the client software on your computer, the application asks you to set a PIN, this will later be used to match and allow your computer to gain access to your phone, so not anybody can use this with your phone, even when on the same network, a nice security feature.

You can go through your phone directories just as if you were going through your folders on your computer. Transfer files to or from your computer, delete things you don’t need on your phone, rename, etc.

You can set up synchronization jobs so a certain folder such as your pictures folder can be copied to your computer straight away, with one click once you connect.

Is it free?

In 2015, the developer decided to remove ads, it’s 2017 now as I write this and there is still no ads. The application is free, the only thing the developer has done is ask for a donation if you want to as you close the program on your computer – completely understandable and respectful, I think people should donate too so his hardwork is paid off and actually one of the reasons why I write this review, because he’s done a good job and does it for free.

Link to MyPhoneExplorer on Google Play.

Link to the website to download the software or more.

Macro Recorder

There’s a program called Macro Recorder by Jitbit Software, it pretty much does what it’s called and I can’t say I’ve fully tried all macro recorders out there, but this seems to be nicely done, not abandoned and not very expensive – relative to the others I found which had one of these flaws.

What it does is it allows you to record keyboard strokes and mouse movements (also clicks/presses). If you have a repetitive task that you do not wish to waste time and effort doing over and over again, also wearing out your keyboard or mouse, that’s when a macro program comes into play.

Macro Recorder

This is what it looks like, pretty much. It has this user-friendly and basic look, though I wonder if this basic attribute might cause some people to shy away assuming it wouldn’t meet their needs? In terms of needs, I think it still needs more work and the last update was in March so it the development is still present. Which is a good thing! http://www.jitbit.com/macro-recorder/versionhistory/

As for my suggestions. The only way to really improve it is to listen carefully to the requests and suggestions of the users as that’s how you can really improve functionality, because they’re the ones that will come up with every crazy situation possible, in a real environment – in my view at least.

Personally one of the issues I have with it is when you require it to press Shift+F4 or Alt+F4, those two lines ends up being 6 as it wants you to Shift DOWN then press that F4 then Shift UP, same for the Alt and others. Yes that’s exactly what you’d be doing on a keyboard and if you wanted to do that, then that’s perfect, but if we’re trying to keep it as clean and compact as possible, that’s making this a lot longer than it has to be if your macro is getting a bit too long. And that’s the whole objective, to cut out the clutter and get straight to the point.

Also I still have yet to fully understand what the “EXIT LOOP” statement does and how you would use it. The speed settings could be a bit more advanced than the simple slider. For example, giving the choice of going in real time or half fast/slow or x2, etc for me is a bit more understanding.

The company itself seems down to earth with some of what they say, which I like so I will continue to watch this and I get a little excited when I see it update! Jitbit Macro Recorder.

qBittorrent (v3.1.9)

I’ve started using qBittorrent to replace μTorrent, due to their pestering ads that really shouldn’t be there to begin with, but what makes it mostly annoying and worse is the fact that even though you can turn it off, it keeps turning on again after every update. It’s not even a simple process of turning it off in the options, but having to search for the correct command lines to actually disable them all properly.

I wasn’t sure if I’d find a good replacement, because what made uTorrent so popular simply because it was miles ahead of the other bittorrent clients. This post is to say; indeed I’ve found a good enough replacement that does the job and maybe even better.

qBittorrent is cross-platform, available on Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, OS/2, FreeBSD. It’s free and under the GPLv2+ license. This means that the software is not indirectly or directly supporting an operating system and you’re free to download the source code and change it the way you prefer or if need be, adapt it to your needs. This encourages development, but else why is this important? Well if a lot more software, including games considered this, we would have the option to change our operating systems depending on our needs too.. Just like the same way I’m not happy with uTorrent, I can choose to change my OS if it’s also acting up..

Anyway, qBittorrent has all the features you would expect from uTorrent and personally, I’ve customized it the way I like it, which is turning off all the extras as much as possible and clearly seeing what’s downloading, what’s finished.

qbittorrent

As you can see, I’ve removed the top bar, side bar to make it look like a basic downloader, which is how I like it. Here’s what the wiki says:

It aims to have a small foot-print, to be powerful, intuitive and visually attractive going beyond the current functions widely provided by other applications. qBittorrent is an attempt to provide a μTorrent equivalent that is open-source and multi-platform adding a streaming-like function to let users download-and-play video files.

Here’s what it looks running on Windows, default settings compared to what I’ve done above:

qbittorrent
Source from softonic.com

Here’s what it looks running on Ubuntu:

qbittorrent
Source from wikipedia.org

So if you’re looking for a replacement, this my suggestion.