Windows Store won't open after update this morning

Scottyboy99 said:

I am curious though. When the update fails on one of your 4 machines does it put the store in a state where you are then unable to launch it afterwards? If so, how do you fix it? By doing a system restore?

Yes, after a failed update the Store won't start anymore -- the window only flashes briefly. So far I haven't found a solution. When it happened for the first time (on two computers at once) I did some experiments on the one that I wouldn't really need for while, but after no success I got really frustrated and just tried to delete all those annoying modern apps, or whatever they are officially called. Unfortunately it turned out that many of Windows 10's basic functions, like the Start menu, and Settings menus were actually implemented using the apps. So the only thing left to do was a clean install of Windows 10. The other computer is one that I really need to working, and the apps are not really essential on it, so I've just let it be so far.

When the problem occurred again, on a third computer (Linx 7 tablet, which I bought out of curiosity because it was so cheap), I thought I would fix it by updating to a preview version of Windows 10 to get to know that, but the update hasn't started so far. I guess it's because there's a HP LaserJet printer driver that keeps failing to install on the Windows Update, and it might be blocking all other updates. (The printer driver issue has for a couple of weeks affected three of my computers -- all Windows 10 computers except the one that had the clean install of Windows.)

So no solutions so far, only more and more frustration. It feels like Microsoft is pushing unstable stuff for people, and same time taking off people's means to fix the problems Microsoft's software caused, by limiting what people can do with their own machines. I've used DOS and Windows from 1990 and been mainly satisfied with them, but lately I've started to wish that the programs I need would have Linux versions of them... And an alternative thought has been how well might some server versions of Windows run on laptops -- one might think that with the server Windows's the user would still be in control... But in practice the server Windows is not available in just any shop, and it might be a bit pricy too.

Pauli80 said:

I guess it's because there's a HP LaserJet printer driver that keeps failing to install on the Windows Update, and it might be blocking all other updates.

Update on this: the printer driver issue isn't blocking other updates coming through Windows Update after all. A new cumulative update just got installed on my machines in spite of the failing printer driver update. But the new update didn't fix any of the problems either.

And to get back to the Store issue, a new update for Store appeared as well. The result: one more PC with Store that won't open! I don't know what I was thinking when installing it. Now, out of four Windows 10 computers, the only one with functioning Store is the one that had a clean install performed after earlier messed up Store!

To : Pauli80
Would Reset this PC option out of the question ?

Then in the Powershell Window (Admin) execute the two commands below
Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted
Press ENTER.
Then, copy/paste or type the following
Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml”}

Pauli80, on the one that just went wrong try a system restore point. That worked for me, I guess the other machines are too far gone to try that though. If you get it back ensure app updates are set to automatic in the store settings

Scottyboy99 said:

Pauli80, on the one that just went wrong try a system restore point. That worked for me, I guess the other machines are too far gone to try that though. If you get it back ensure app updates are set to automatic in the store settings

I was first a bit hesitant with the system restore because the latest restore point was a few days old, and there had been other updates since. But it did go through, though with some weird errors, and I'm not completely sure whether the restore was actually fully performed (error message saying the restore was reverted after failing), but look like at the the Store got restored, and it works now on this computer. (Just made a new manual restore before something would go wrong again.)

Also, I have come up with a some kind of theory on how this mess with all my computers might have started. Those two computers that had the Store failing first, "happened" to be the same computers on which I had earlier uninstalled the Photos app using PowerShell (don't like the app, there's no official way to uninstall it, and came across some instructions on how to uninstall apps through PowerShell.) That time, everything seemed to go well, but now that I think of it, it was the next time after that for the Store to update when the update failed. So probably something went wrong with the Store when the Photos app was uninstalled. (I don't know if I did the uninstall somehow wrong, or if uninstalling generally broke something.)

A mystery remains how the problem spread to the other computers, because I didn't do the uninstall trick on them. But I do log in all my computers usually with a Microsoft account. And the Store failures solely have occurred on the user accounts I log in with the Microsoft account. I have also local administrator accounts on my computers in case something goes wrong with the primary accounts. The Store has not failed even once on the local accounts. So I'm wondering if some settings have got replicated from the first computers to the cloud service, and from there to the other computers.

Scottyboy99, had you happened to try some tweaking with PowerShell, or generally on apps before the problem started? I'm wondering if the cause is the manual vs. automatic updating, or if it's wrong kind of tweaking. But anyway, if either of those broke the Store, it's just too fragile. And as the Store was restored into an earlier state, there's again the update being offered. I'm not going to allow the update again, neither manually, nor automatically, as long as it will keep working. Hopefully there's a new build going to be published soon; maybe installing that would then fix the problem on the other computers. (When the November update came, installing it was a nuisance, but now I'm looking forward for the next one.)

Oh, and I came across on a couple of sites some findings that in the current build of Windows 10 (November update) the PowerShell commands that would have fixed the Store in earlier builds, haven't worked so well because of some glitch. That might explain some of the problems here.

I'd never touched anything before the store went wrong in mine. It was only broke in my user account. I believe it's because I had it open when I tried to manually updated but who knows. I then made the bad mistake of trying the power shell fix but it made things much worse and broke store for all users. Luckily I immediately did system restore to a couple days prior and it all went through error free. The store was back, I saw the pending update re-appear but quickly changed app update settings to auto and exited it. I waited a good few mins and re opened store, it was updated ok and showing new version. I wish I knew the dos and donts. It strikes me store and native apps are so flakey with no easy way to re install. MS needs to pull their finger out

Cool, thanks for sharing that info. At least MS are aware and admitted it. Often they stay quiet and pretend problems don't exist