Don’t you hate it when you get a shiny new computer, and you find it to be full of programs you don’t want or need (or what we call bloatware)? The manufacturer added these programs to your computer to promote their apps or the apps of their partners. They waste space on your hard drive, appear on your Start menu, and sometimes they can run in the background and slow down your PC.
You can remove bloatware from Windows 10 or Windows 11 and free up space. Be aware, though, that major Windows updates tend to reinstall them anyway, so you may find yourself battling against that.
Luckily, we’ve put together a list of different ways to get rid of bloatware and unwanted applications. Here they are!
O&O ShutUp10++
O&O’s excellent tool for Windows 10 has been updated to work with Windows 11, and does a broad sweep of the operating system to get rid of all bloatware and spyware-like apps and features on the operating system.
Once ShutUp10 is installed, you can choose to disable a huge amount of privacy-compromising features in Windows that you may not have known about. Click the name of the feature to see a description of what it does and how it works, then you just click the slider to disable it.
The app will offer to create a system restore point first, which you should accept, and if you’re unsure about what to disable then just use the ‘Recommended’ column over on the right-hand side of ShutUp.
Remove Suggestions and Ads
More than any Windows version before it, Windows 10 and Windows 11 are intertwined with various companies and developers to promote certain products to you (or Microsoft’s own products that you probably don’t need). It’s annoying and takes away the feeling that this is your operating system.
So how do you get rid of this particular brand of bloat?
Windows 11
There are several places in Windows 11 where you can switch the sliders so that you’re not getting what are essentially in-OS popups on your PC.
Go to “Settings -> Privacy & security -> General”.
Here you can pretty much switch all the On/off sliders to the “Off” position to improve your privacy. The particularly “Bloatware” option here is the one that says “Show me suggested content in the Settings app,” which would be giving you pointers to apps and information that you almost certainly don’t want.
Windows 10
Click the Start button, type “suggestion” and select “Show suggestions occasionally in Start.”
Another thing you can do to clean up your Start menu of Microsoft bloat is simply right-click the offending tiles and click “Unpin from Start.”
Traditional Uninstall
You can remove some bloatware through the traditional “Uninstall” feature on Windows. To remove programs such as Microsoft Money, News, or Sports:
- Click on the Windows logo in the bottom-left corner.
- Locate the program you want to uninstall and right-click on it.
- Click Uninstall and confirm the uninstall.
Remove Bloatware with PowerShell
Windows PowerShell is a shell, or user interface, developed by Microsoft for task automation and configuration management. We can use PowerShell to remove bloatware in two different ways.
Hiding Apps Using “Remove-AppxPackage”
The first procedure hides the apps without actually deleting them from your system. This method is best if you don’t want the app reappearing if Windows reinstalls it because it’s not actually being reinstalled.
Before you uninstall apps, make sure no other programs are running on your computer. Then start PowerShell.
- Type Powershell in the search box in the lower-left corner.
- Click “Run as Administrator.”
- Click “Yes” to confirm.
- Enter the command listed below for the program you want to uninstall.
Get-AppxPackage *appName* | Remove-AppxPackage
Replace appName with the actual name of the application you want to uninstall.
- Press Enter.
- Repeat for other programs you want to remove.
Enter a command from this list for the program you wish to uninstall.
3D Builder:
Get-AppxPackage *3dbuilder* | Remove-AppxPackage
Alarms and Clock:
Get-AppxPackage *windowsalarms* | Remove-AppxPackage
Calculator:
Get-AppxPackage *windowscalculator* | Remove-AppxPackage
Calendar and Mail:
Get-AppxPackage *windowscommunicationsapps* | Remove-AppxPackage
Camera:
Get-AppxPackage *windowscamera* | Remove-AppxPackage
Get Office:
Get-AppxPackage *officehub* | Remove-AppxPackage
Get Skype:
Get-AppxPackage *skypeapp* | Remove-AppxPackage
Get Started:
Get-AppxPackage *getstarted* | Remove-AppxPackage
Groove Music:
Get-AppxPackage *zunemusic* | Remove-AppxPackage
Maps:
Get-AppxPackage *windowsmaps* | Remove-AppxPackage
Microsoft Solitaire Collection:
Get-AppxPackage *solitairecollection* | Remove-AppxPackage
Money:
Get-AppxPackage *bingfinance* | Remove-AppxPackage
Movies & TV:
Get-AppxPackage *zunevideo* | Remove-AppxPackage
News:
Get-AppxPackage *bingnews* | Remove-AppxPackage
OneNote:
Get-AppxPackage *onenote* | Remove-AppxPackage
People:
Get-AppxPackage *people* | Remove-AppxPackage
Phone Companion:
Get-AppxPackage *windowsphone* | Remove-AppxPackage
Photos:
Get-AppxPackage *photos* | Remove-AppxPackage
Store:
Get-AppxPackage *windowsstore* | Remove-AppxPackage
Sports:
Get-AppxPackage *bingsports* | Remove-AppxPackage
Voice Recorder:
Get-AppxPackage *soundrecorder* | Remove-AppxPackage
Weather:
Get-AppxPackage *bingweather* | Remove-AppxPackage
Xbox:
Get-AppxPackage *xboxapp* | Remove-AppxPackage
Delete Bloatware Using DISM
If you want to obliterate all bloatware from your system totally, you can use a different command in PowerShell called DISM. DISM stands for Deployment Imaging Service and Management.
- Type Powershell in the search box in the lower-left corner.
- Click “Run as Administrator.”
- Click “Yes” to confirm.
- View the entire list of system bloatware using the following command:
DISM /Online /Get-ProvisionedAppxPackages | select-string Packagename
- Locate an app you want to delete from your system entirely.
- Copy the Packagename for the app. I’m deleting Xbox apps from my system.
- Type this command:
DISM /Online /Remove-ProvisionedAppxPackage /PackageName:PACKAGENAME
replacing PACKAGENAME with the name from the list we generated earlier. Mine was:
DISM /Online /Remove-ProvisionedAppxPackage /PackageName:Microsoft.Xbox.TCUI_1.24.10001.0_neutral_~_8wekyb3d8bbwe
- Repeat until you have deleted the bloatware you want to remove.
- Restart your machine for the changes to take effect.
Windows 10 Debloater App (also works in Windows 11)
If you are absolutely sure you want to delete all of the bloatware on your machine, you can use a third-party app called Windows 10 Debloater to remove them all with one click of a button. Here is a list of the programs Windows 10 Debloater will remove. You can also use this in Windows 11.
- Go to the Windows 10 Debloater site.
- Click the green Clone or download button.
- Click Download ZIP.
- Save the file to your machine.
- Click on the “Extract all” button to extract the contents of the file.
- For easy location, click the box that says, “Show extracted files when complete.”
- Right-click on Windows10DebloaterGUI and select “Run with PowerShell.”
- Click Open.
- Type Y for yes and press Enter.
- A window for Windows 10 Debloater will open.
- Click the first button, which says, “Remove All Bloatware.”
The app will immediately begin uninstalling bloatware apps on your machine. You can watch the progress that remains open in the background in the PowerShell Window.
Whatever your reason for wanting to remove bloatware from your Windows computer, these methods will help you get rid of everything you possibly can.
To recover more storage space, you might also want to remove unwanted data from the “C” drive. Of course, there are ways to expand your PC’s storage without deleting anything, too.
If you want to keep digging and messing around with your Windows setup, find out how to add different startup sounds to your PC. We can also show you how to find out if someone is logging into your PC.
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