TOPIC: APP INSTALLER
Using PowerShell to reinstall Windows Apps
9th September 2016Recently, I managed to use 10AppsManager to remove most of the in-built apps from a Windows 10 virtual machine that I have for testing development versions in case anything ugly were to appear in a production update. Curiosity is my excuse for letting the tool do what it did and some could do with restoration. Out of the lot, Windows Store is the main one that I have sorted so far.
The first step of the process was to start up PowerShell in administrator mode. On my system, this is as simple as clicking on the relevant item in the menu popped up by right-clicking on the Start Menu button and clicking on the Yes button in the dialogue box that appears afterwards. In your case, it might be a case of right-clicking on the appropriate Start Menu programs entry, selecting the administrator option and going from there.
With this PowerShell session open, the first command to issue is the following:
Get-Appxpackage -Allusers > c:\temp\appxpackage.txt
This creates a listing of Windows app information and pops it into a text file in your choice of directory. Opening the text file in Notepad allows you to search it more easily, and there is an entry for Windows Store:
Name : Microsoft.WindowsStore
Publisher : CN=Microsoft Corporation, O=Microsoft Corporation, L=Redmond, S=Washington, C=US
Architecture : X64
ResourceId :
Version : 11607.1001.32.0
PackageFullName : Microsoft.WindowsStore_11607.1001.32.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
InstallLocation : C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.WindowsStore_11607.1001.32.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
IsFramework : False
PackageFamilyName : Microsoft.WindowsStore_8wekyb3d8bbwe
PublisherId : 8wekyb3d8bbwe
PackageUserInformation : {S-1-5-21-3224249330-198124288-2558179248-1001
IsResourcePackage : False
IsBundle : False
IsDevelopmentMode : False
Dependencies : {Microsoft.VCLibs.140.00_14.0.24123.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe,
Microsoft.NET.Native.Framework.1.3_1.3.24201.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe,
Microsoft.NET.Native.Runtime.1.3_1.3.23901.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe,
Microsoft.WindowsStore_11607.1001.32.0_neutral_split.scale-100_8wekyb3d8bbwe}Using the information from the InstallLocation field, the following command can be built and executed (here, it has gone over several lines, so you need to get your version onto a single one):
Add-AppxPackage -register "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.WindowsStore_11607.1001.32.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe\AppxManifest.xml" -DisableDevelopmentMode
Once the above has completed, the app was installed and ready to use again. As the mood took me, I installed other apps from the Windows Store as I saw fit.
Forcing an upgrade to Windows 10 Anniversary Update
6th September 2016There remain people who advise those on Windows 7 or 8.x to hold fire on upgrading to Windows 10. Now that the free upgrade no longer is available, that advice may hold more weight than it did. Even so, there are those among us who jumped ship who are open to having the latest versions of things at no monetary cost to see what is available, and I must admit to being one of those.
After all, I do have a virtual machine with a pre-release version of the next update to Windows 10 installed on there to see what might be coming our way and to get a sense of what changes that may bring so that I am ready for those. Otherwise, I am usually happy to wait, but I noticed that the Windows 10 Anniversary Update only came to my HP Pavilion dm4 laptop and not other machines with Windows 10 installed, so I started to wonder why there was a lag when it came to automatic upgrades.
So that these things do not arrive when it is least convenient, I took advantage of a manual method to choose my timing. This did not involve installation from a disk image, but was in-situ. The first part of the process is standard enough in that the Settings app was started and the Update & security item chosen. That dropped me onto the Windows Update, and I first clicked on the Check for updates button to see what would happen. When nothing came of that, the Learn more link was clicked to bring me onto part of the Microsoft support website where I found that the Windows 10 Anniversary Update installer could be downloaded, so I duly did just that.
Running it produced a screen asking whether I wanted to proceed. Since I wanted to go ahead, the appropriate button was clicked and the machine left alone until the process completed. Because the installer purely is a facilitator, the first stage is to download the rest of the files needed, and that will take a while on any connection. Once downloading was completed, the actual process of installation commenced with several restarts before a log-in screen was again on offer. On logging in to the machine, the last part of the process started.
Though the process took quite a while, it seemingly worked without a hitch. If there was anything that I needed to do, it was the re-installation of VirtualBox Guest Additions to restore access to shared folders, as well as dealing with a self-inflicted irritation. Otherwise, I have found that previously installed software worked as expected and no file has been missed. Waiting a while may have had its advantages too because initial issues with the Anniversary Update will have been addressed, though it is best not to leave it too long, or you could have the feeling of being forgotten. A happy balance needs striking.