As you likely have found the Group Policy to disable the store (see below) only works with Windows 8 Pro and Enterprise , and Windows 10 Enterprise and Education. This means it does NOT work on Windows 10 Pro, which is super annoying.
USER CONFIGURATION > ADMINISTRATIVE TEMPLATES > WINDOWS COMPONENTS > STORE > TURN OFF THE STORE APPLICATION
The insane suggestion I had received from Microsoft Partner Support a few months ago was to “simply” delete the STORE application files from every profile on every PC and then hope that Microsoft does not update the STORE in the future, which would reinstall it under a slightly different path.
After MANY hours of banging on this problem I found a simple GPO to will stop the STORE. Software Restriction Policies has worked well:
COMPUTER CONFIGURATION > POLICIES > WINDOWS SETTINGS > SECRURITY SETTINGS > SOFTWARE RESTRICTION POLICIES >
At this point you will likely have to right click and select NEW or CREATE to populate this GPO.
> ADDITIONAL RULES > right click and create a rule that disallows %programfiles%\WindowsApps\Microsoft.WindowsStore*
It is VERY important to use the ‘*’ wildcard in this path because Microsoft will change the path as they update the STORE application over the coming years.
44 Comments
Saul · March 14, 2017 at 2:27 pm
Thanks, but I tried this and it won’t work on the rest of the users. Any idea?
Ian Matthews · March 20, 2017 at 8:33 pm
Hi Saul; This should apply to all users assuming the policy is applied to them or the machine. Did you make sure the wildcard “*” is at the end of %programfiles%\WindowsApps\Microsoft.WindowsStore* ?
Jordan · November 4, 2016 at 10:46 am
Is there a way to do this if you are not connected to a corporate network but still use 10 Pro? I don’t even have the option to create policies under the Computer Configuration tab.
Ian Matthews · November 5, 2016 at 11:20 am
Hi Jordan; If you are small enough to not be on a corporate network, you can just remove the Store application. The process would be the same as how to remove EDGE or CORTANA, which you can see http://www.urtech.ca/2016/08/solved-video-hard-reset-microsoft-edge-browser-windows-10-remove-edge-completely/
I hope this helps 🙂
Shawn · October 29, 2016 at 8:13 pm
Does this still work? I attempted as a user policy and the store still seems to work. I am running 10 Pro v 1607.
Thanks
Ian Matthews · November 5, 2016 at 11:22 am
I have not tried it on 1607 but I would be a bit surprised if it does not work
sam h · June 22, 2016 at 10:29 pm
can this be reverted back?
Ian Matthews · June 26, 2016 at 8:03 pm
Definitely. Just remove or disable the GPO.
Squuiid · June 6, 2016 at 6:27 am
If you want an exception to this create a separate AD container with a new SRP, using the specific folder name as unrestricted. You can’t unrestrict using wildcards(*).
In my instance the unrestrict policy is for:
%programfiles%\WindowsApps\Microsoft.WindowsStore_11602.1.26.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
This will obviously change as the store version is updated. You can find the current version by typing in powershell:
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.WindowsStore*
Akbar · June 1, 2016 at 2:16 am
Thank you very much, it’s safe me to disabled the store for windows 10 pro. can i reblog this? and of course I will give the source of the article.
Ian Matthews · June 2, 2016 at 6:27 pm
Sure. If you can provide a link back to my site then you can reblog it.
Have a good one 🙂
R · May 23, 2016 at 11:38 pm
Does this actually stop things like store downloading updates? We’ve had a problem where a few updates go into a recurring loop and download 50gb/day for no result possibly due to some sort of compatibility with a web proxy like this MS technet post: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/e9531028-4bfe-40c0-af5c-8873c42b6bae/massive-download?forum=win10itprogeneral
Ian Matthews · May 29, 2016 at 11:10 am
That is an excellent question and I think the answer is yes. I have not tested this but from my experience the updates only come down when the STORE is running sooooo unless I missed something, this should kill the updates.
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