Loss of Store, Calculator, People App, Photo App in Windows 10

Hi there - I'm using a Surface 2 Pro running Windows 10 and noticed yesterday that a number of apps are simply not working when I log in using my profile (I am the user administrator on the machine, there are three other normal user accounts - family members)

The apps that are not working include, most annoyingly - the Store. Also, photos, calculator, People App and perhaps even the Google Chrome App (I haven't tested that exhaustively). There are two or three other apps affected as well, though I am at workright now and can't remember them exactly (but they are MS based ones that were more "default apps" rather than, say, games, or other apps downloaded from the store)

I noted on a number of forums around the web that the issue of non working people/calc/store/photos wasn't uncommon.

I've tried a number of possible solutions, but to no avail. I've tried wsreset, tried the latest troubleshooter from the MS site, even got into powershell and worked through commands there to try and put back into place the Store. I've tried to restore the system to an earlier point (2 weeks ago).

None of this has worked. All the apps open but do nothing. Then they eventually (5 seconds, maybe less) close of their own accord.

But here's the thing - This is only happening on my account. I can log in to any of the other three user accounts on the Surface and the store, calculator, people apps, photos etc - they all work.

So I'm flummoxed. I am thinking that this has only occurred in the past week or so - maybe via an update, I am not sure. I do know that all these apps were working fine 3 or so weeks ago.

I don't know if it makes any difference, but I added a user account to the system at the start of the month. Again, just a user account, nothing fancy and the addition all went well.

Has anyone else experienced this? I'm usually pretty methodical and passably decent at diagnosing these things, but this has me utterly stumped.

Thanks in advance everyone.

Brink said:

Hello Chris, and welcome to Ten Forums. :)

If you haven't already, you might see if using the tutorial below to reinstall and re-register all apps may help.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3...ws-8-10-a.html

If not, then you could do a repair install to fix them without losing anything.

Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade

Thankyou Brink - that second link is sort of what I was looking for - a repair-install from within Win10.

I'll try both of these out later on today and hopefully they work ... I'll come back with an update :)

OK, so I've tried both suggestions above from Brink

The first one: Apps - Reinstall and Re-register in Windows 8 and 10 - zoomed through as per the pictures shown in the link. Got to the end, showed this screen



Went back, tried to open the apps in question - no change.

Second option - Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade - I went to the site as directed, downloaded the link to the app, hit YES at the UAC and it didn't do any updating at all. It came up immediately that my copy of Windows was up to date and directed me to exit. No change, nothing fixed.

However, I have taken a second screenshot as below. You'll see on the left in the apps list there's a whole heap of apps which don't work (under my profile, no-one elses) listed under "Other" with codes and what seem to be error messages beside them (they look like package IDs to me, but anyway) . You'll also notice in looking at the tile for the store that there is a code on it which also appears when I endeavour to launch the app.

App then crashes. Similar story with all the other apps.



I'm at a loss to be honest. I thought the second option would work, but it actually downloads nothing at all (maybe the link has changed, I don't know).

Do these screenshots offer any insights?

Thanks so much.

I'm guessing your attempt at system restore may of been to a point when the apps were already corrupted. Do you have a restore point from even further back from when you know they were working? Unfortunately the native apps are very troublesome and not easily resolved when they go wrong. I suspect the apps auto updated in the background and it didn't go smoothly first time round. I've had problems in the past where they go wrong on only my user account but not for others (or vice versa) all because of updates to the apps. Fortunately system restore saved me as doing a repair install or clean install is quite an undertaking for something MS should make much simpler.

If you do get them working again. Go into Store and turn auto app updates off and only do manual checks. Then you have much greater control and take regular manual restore points as they have a tendency to glitch from time to time

I don't really know how system restore works but it helped me in similar situation.

I think in that case past app updates for the native apps must of caused corruption in the registry because system restore has rescued situation for me on a couple of occasions. On one occasion I had a problem with the photos app and store app once and ran a powershell fix which created absolute carnage across many apps and user accounts - system restore was the saviour again. Unfortunately the native apps in my experience are a little bit unpredictable - most of the time fine but on the odd occasion they can screw things up which is what may of happened for the OP.

i also think there is a small chance of an app corrupting if you are unlucky enough to have it open when auto app update decides to try and update it. At least I think that's how my photos app went awry once. There just seem to be far too many cases of people with broken native apps not just on this forum but across the net. As good as Windows 10 is the App Store / update process seems to be a weak spot. Probably works better on mobiles than it does for us desktop OS users

Thanks again to everyone who has replied. Really great community of people here, thanks heaps.

Have had some good news in that I decided to log into each of the other three user profiles on the machine, in turn, and ensure all the upgrades that might've been pending were in place.

The interesting thing was that there were a number of updates that were outstanding, and once they were installed they fixed my corrupted or un-useable apps.

So I think the list of about 10-12 non-functioning apps has now reduced to 4 or 5. A couple I don't use, but a couple - people, and the store - I do.

I may endeavour to pull together the ISO and use it as Brink suggests above. If that doesn't work, the other option might just be to wait until there is another update or upgrade to some of these native/core apps.

Am I right in understanding that there will be a large-ish update in August?

Thanks again everyone.