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enter image description here A lot of my customers (management) complain about all the free apps that come with Windows 10. They don't want them on their employee's computer. So after searching a while I found the Powershell snippet Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage which does truly uninstall those apps from the computer and all profiles.

So I said to myself "what if people want the calculator back"? I went to the Microsoft store and found Windows Calculator but when I click on "Get" nothing happens. I see a little flicker in the lower left. A URL something to do with adclick but the app shows now signs of installing. I have tried it with Chrome and Edge. So did running the above snippet remove something where the apps won't re-install or even try to? How do you get Windows Calculator back?

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If you have only used Remove-AppxPackage to remove apps and have not further deleted their files from C:\Program Files\WindowsApps (NOT recommended), then the packages still exist in this folder and can be reinstalled (or rather re-registered).

To reinstall all apps, use an elevated PowerShell session to run:

Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

To reinstall one app only, for example the calculator:

$manifest = (Get-AppxPackage *WindowsCalculator*).InstallLocation + '\AppxManifest.xml'
Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register $manifest

For more information and a list of all the apps see the article
How to Reinstall and Re-register All Built-in Windows Apps in Windows 10.

From the discussion below, it seems like the user profile in question has been corrupted.

Such problems can very rarely be successfully analyzed and fixed. The usual advice is to migrate everything to a new user profile.

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  • As mentioned the only thing done (to remove them) was Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage. The command you gave threw an error. Attached screen shot in original question.
    – user900344
    Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 20:08
  • I improved (and tested) the command for the calculator.
    – harrymc
    Commented Jan 6, 2021 at 20:41
  • I struggle with Superuser's format. Did you just overwrite the previous example with new code? If so it throws the same error.
    – user900344
    Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 14:36
  • Yes, I copy-pasted a new command command into my answer. It should work. Is PowerShell run as admin?
    – harrymc
    Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 14:39
  • Yes. Powershell as admin. As kind of a footnote I know the packages are still there because when I log in as a new profile all the apps are back.
    – user900344
    Commented Jan 8, 2021 at 11:42

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