Turn On or Off Background Apps in Windows 10  

werby said:

Just "Reset" any or all WinApps (one by one) and then you can find them under "Background Apps" list.
PS: Turning Off "Background Apps", cannot affect Edge.

Thanks for this werby. :)

First time I've experienced something bugging on a clean install and not on an upgrade lol.

So what I said earlier was right, all these apps were running in the background with no option to turn them off...
Also, having to reset every Store app...

elbeasto said:

...So what I said earlier was right, all these apps were running in the background with no option to turn them off....

No, I don't think so.
I've never seen any of them running, while they weren't listed.

You're welcome!:)

TechHool said:

Go ahead and turn Let apps run in the background to ON. Then go to Apps & Features, select Edge from the list and go to Advanced settings and hit Reset. Once done, open Edge, now it should appear on the Let apps run in the background list. Now you can turn Let apps run in the background to OFF again. This worked for me for any app that wasn't listed.

This actually worked, thanks!

elbeasto said:

Thanks for this, it works on my system too.

Another thing here is that the sub keys only list a few apps, i.e. the ones that now appear in the background apps list in privacy settings, whereas all installed apps were listed in 1709.

Could this mean that all the apps not listed are running in the background at boot with no option to turn them off?

As far as i understand not all apps that appear in the Let apps run in the background list, have a subkey under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\BackgroundAccessApplication. At least that's how i see it in my system.

What i noticed tho (again the behavior was tested only on my installation) is that any app not listed at "Let apps run in the background" could start running at any point after boot, that's why i went on and reset almost all apps. Keep in mind that most apps don't start during boot, they have "delayed start".

Brink said:

Unless you disabled the delay.

Enable or Disable Startup Delay in Windows 10 | Windows 10 Tutorials

Indeed :)

TechHool said:

As far as i understand not all apps that appear in the Let apps run in the background list, have a subkey under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\BackgroundAccessApplication. At least that's how i see it in my system. What i noticed tho (again the behavior was tested only on my installation) is that any app not listed at "Let apps run in the background" could start running at any point after boot, that's why i went on and reset almost all apps. Keep in mind that most apps don't start during boot, they have "delayed start".

Just gonna chip in with my two cents: for me the app that kept appearing as a background process in Task Manager whenever I left my computer idle for a however long period of time was Microsoft Edge.

Edge didn't appear in the Background Apps list and didn't have an entry under BackgroundAccessApplications in regedit. Regardless of whatever regedit settings such as GlobalUserDisabled 1 or BackgroundAppGlobalToggle 0 or even Group Policy Edits were active, Edge would keep appearing as a background process...

... Until I tried resetting the app, which made it finally appear in the background apps list, created an entry under BackgroundAccessApplications and (for now at least) doesn't appear anymore as a background process, even with my computer idle for a few hours.

trashbag said:

Just gonna chip in with my two cents: for me the app that kept appearing as a background process in Task Manager whenever I left my computer idle for a however long period of time was Microsoft Edge.

Edge didn't appear in the Background Apps list and didn't have an entry under BackgroundAccessApplications in regedit. Regardless of whatever settings such as GlobalUserDisabled or BackgroundAppGlobalToggle or even Group Policy Edits were active, Edge would keep appearing as a background process...

... Until I tried resetting the app, which made it finally appear in the background apps list, created an entry under BackgroundAccessApplications and (for now at least) doesn't appear anymore as a background process, even with my computer idle for a few hours.

That means that any app listed at Background Apps should have a subkey under BackgroundAccessApplication. In any case, resetting the app seems to be working for now, plus the "Migrated" key which stops Background apps turning on after every boot.

Yes I have sub keys in the registry now after resetting all the Store apps.

This is happening from a clean install though, like wth.

Here is what I did and finally solved my problem for all apps including Windows Settings running in the background:

1- Create dword entry "Migrated" value:4 in
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\BackgroundAccessApplications
2- Run Powershell as admin and register all apps with this command:

Code:

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

This will create an entry for each app that shows that app in Background Apps so we can disable them.
3- Go to Settings > Privacy > Background Apps and disable apps one by one.
4- Run gpedit.msc and go to Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Microsoft Edge
Enable "Prevent Microsoft Edge from starting and loading..." and select "Prevent tab preloading".

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Windows 10 Pro (1803 build 17134.228)