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I came across a rare problem that I cannot solve for a week. This happened to my primary Windows 10 version 21H2 account which happens to be Administrator.

Whenever I launch some of modern (UWP) Microsoft Store apps from Start Menu it does nothing (no splash screen, etc.).

This does happen not to all of the apps, but for the most of them, i.e Microsoft Store works, Calculator works, but Windows Terminal does not work. I could not figure any pattern.

Event Viewer reports two consecutive errors whenever I click icon in Start Menu, this is a whole sequence of events (happen in 2 seconds) from Event Viewer > Applications and Services Logs > Microsoft > Windows > AppModel-Runtime (I added event ID and time to each event manually to minimize post size):

15:55:05 [Event ID 217] Destroyed Desktop AppX container cbdebc96-9651-11ed-926f-88665a3ad365 for package Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_1.15.3465.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe.

15:55:05 [Event ID 216] 0x800700B7: Cannot create the Desktop AppX container for package Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_1.15.3465.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe because an error was encountered configuring the runtime.

15:55:05 [Event ID 208] 0x800700B7: Cannot create the process for package Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_1.15.3465.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe because an error was encountered while configuring runtime. [LaunchProcess]

15:55:05 [Event ID 70] AppModel Runtime status for package Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_1.15.3465.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe for user PC\Administrator successfully updated to 0x20 (previous status = 0x0).

15:55:05 [Event ID 40] AppContainer onecore\ds\security\gina\profile\profext\appcontainer.cpp Line:1812 @{Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_1.15.3465.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe?ms-resource://Microsoft.WindowsTerminal/Resources/AppStoreName} Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_8wekyb3d8bbwe was not created because it already exists.

15:55:06 [Event ID 70] AppModel Runtime status for package Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_1.15.3465.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe for user PC\Administrator successfully updated to 0x0 (previous status = 0x20).

15:55:06 [Event ID 217] Destroyed Desktop AppX container cbdebc97-9651-11ed-926f-88665a3ad365 for package Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_1.15.3465.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe.

15:55:06 [Event ID 216] 0x800700B7: Cannot create the Desktop AppX container for package Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_1.15.3465.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe because an error was encountered configuring the runtime.

15:55:06 [Event ID 208] 0x800700B7: Cannot create the process for package Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_1.15.3465.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe because an error was encountered while configuring runtime. [LaunchProcess]

If I download Msixbundle file ad attempt to manually install it (using DesktopAppInstaller) by double clicking, installation completes successfully. However when I click launch in App Installer window I get the error dialog (it appears twice just like the errors above!):

C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_1.15.3465.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Cannot create a file when that file already exists.

Capture

Meanwhile I can successfully run any app by going to it's folder and executing it's Win32 EXE file, i.e. C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.WindowsTerminal_1.15.3465.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe\WindowsTerminal.exe will successfully launch Terminal.

However I get only nothing and 2 errors in Event Viewer if I attempt to launch app from PowerShell using start "shell:AppsFolder\$(Get-StartApps "Terminal" | select -ExpandProperty AppId)"

Lastly, I created new account and added it to Administrators group. I can easily run any app from start menu of the new account (without reinstalling anything, i.e. provisioned package Xbox Game Bar mentioned above works straight out of the box).

I've tried troubleshooting (sfc /scannow, DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth, WSReset, resetting apps individually via Settings, re-registering all apps for all users using PowerShell command), I've also set full permissions of %ProgramFiles%\WindowsApps, %LocalAppData%\Packages, %ProgramData%\Packages to Administrators & Everyone.

I have also tried monitoring activity using ProcMon (Process Monitor by Sysinternals). However it looks like everything's fine, no file read or write rejects on the time error happens.

I did not install any new programs or updates before of after this happened out of the blue.

Please help, I cannot reset my built-in Administrator account (this cannot be done)!

P.S. I looked all over the Internet but found only 3 short discussions about this problem, people chose to give up in all of them & reinstall Windows entirely. I cannot afford a reinstall at this time.

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  • The built-in Administrator account Administrator cannot launch UWP. Why can’t you use a different Administrator account?
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jan 17, 2023 at 12:27
  • Thanks for stopping by! How come Administrator cannot launch UWP apps? I've been using it for last year with InboxApps and apps purchased off Microsoft Store. It's my primary machine, a lot is configured in account. I'd like to figure out how to fix this and what caused this issue so I don't run into this mess in the future (with a new account). It appears to me it's something related to "Start Menu" or "shell" permissions of my account. I'm just not sure what to look for. It's particularly strange that I can start EXE from File Explorer but cannot from PowerShell...
    – bananakid
    Commented Jan 17, 2023 at 12:45
  • The built-in Account cannot login the Microsoft Store either, nor be linked to a Microsoft Account, so it cannot purchase UWP applications. Are you sure you don’t have a different Administrator account on your computer? The built-in account is disabled by default.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jan 17, 2023 at 12:51
  • Sure I'm using built-in Administrator account, my Windows installation is configured using autounattend.xml and there're no user or administrator local accounts out of the box, just built-in Administrator and Guest. I can login to Microsoft Store using my Microsoft Account and purchase & download anything, apps install without a problem to my built-in Administrator account. I can create administrators group accounts as I mentioned above and they do not have the issue with apps not launching with 0x800700B7. This happened out of the blue to my built-in account, all apps were working previously.
    – bananakid
    Commented Jan 17, 2023 at 13:00

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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OK, I finally figured out what caused the problem: I symlinked /d to NUL a couple of obscure (as I thought) cache directories at some point. It turned out something is being cached by UWP apps to these folders on launch. The fix is:

rmdir /s /q "%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\IECompatCache"
rmdir /s /q "%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\IECompatUaCache"
rmdir /s /q "%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\PPBCompatCache"
rmdir /s /q "%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\PPBCompatUaCache"

Now my built-in Administrator account runs good as new!

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