For the most part, Windows 10 has been pretty successful since its release. However, this does not mean that he did not have his share of problems. Now that we get big updates twice a year from Redmond, it looks like there are inevitable disruptions along the way.
I recently upgraded a Windows 10 machine for a client and quickly realized something was wrong when I pressed the Start button. For some strange reason, some of the standard Windows applications were missing. This included News and Weather. I thought I would go to the Microsoft Store and download them again, but the Store throws errors.
In this article, I will introduce several ways to restart Windows to restore default applications.
PowerShell windows
The first way I suggest is to use Windows PowerShell to reset Windows apps to default. First, open an elevated PowerShell window by clicking Start, typing in PowerShell, and then right-clicking it and choosing Run as administrator.
Now copy and paste the following command into the window:
– / Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$ ($ _. InstallLocation) AppXManifest.xml” -Verbose}
It will take some time to complete this command, so please be patient. If nothing happens for a long time or an error message appears, try restarting your computer and trying again.
Create a new account
If the above method didn’t work, another option is to create a new account on your system. If you’re signed in with a Microsoft account, it might be a good idea to switch to your local account and then return to your Microsoft account and see if that solves the problem.
You can add an additional account to your computer by going to the Settings app, clicking on Accounts and then on Family & Other People.
Click on the “Add someone to this computer” option at the bottom. Microsoft is really annoying and will try to force you to add an account using an email address and so on, but you have to click the I don’t have this person’s login information link and then add the Add a user without a Microsoft account link. Then you can actually create a regular local user account!
You will have to manually transfer all your data from your old account to your new one, but this is better than restarting Windows 10 – the only other option below.
Reset Windows 10 PC
If your default apps like Microsoft Edge, Microsoft Store, Mail, Calendar, etc. are missing and none of the above worked for you, then your only other option at the moment is a hard reset. You can do this by going to Settings, Update & Security and then clicking on Recovery.
When you do a factory reset, you’ll have two options: keep your personal files, or delete everything and start from scratch. In both cases, all of your third party apps will be removed. After the reset, you will have to install all your programs again. Enjoy!
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