How to Cleanly Remove Built‑In Microsoft Store Apps in Windows 11 25H2 with Group Policy

Since Windows 10 and Windows 11 began pre‑installing the full Microsoft Store suite, many IT administrators have asked for an official, clean way to uninstall unwanted built‑in apps such as Sticky Notes, Solitaire, Quick Assist, Xbox, and Clipchamp.

Previously the only option was to run PowerShell scripts that manually delete the packages, which is error‑prone and can disrupt OOBE or deployment pipelines.

The Windows 11 25H2 preview (Dev build 26200.5670, Beta build 26120.4520) adds a Group Policy setting “Remove default Microsoft Store packages”. The policy is located under Computer Configuration → Administrative Templates → Windows Components → App Package Deployment.

Enabling the policy creates registry entries under

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Appx\RemoveDefaultMicrosoftStorePackages

, each sub‑key representing a selected app by its package family name.

With this policy, Windows automatically removes the selected built‑in apps during device configuration, eliminating the need for custom scripts.

In Windows 24H2 the apps can also be removed manually without the policy, but the policy remains useful for large‑scale deployments.

An open‑source project called NAppClean (https://github.com/builtbybel/NAppClean) extends this capability, allowing administrators to delete any app—including third‑party packages—not just the first‑party ones covered by the built‑in policy.