Windows 10 Tip: How to Uninstall (Almost) Any App

If you’re familiar with Windows 8, you may know that Microsoft made it very easy to uninstall Modern mobile apps. In Windows 10, this capability has been extended to universal apps, of course. But it’s also available—gasp—for legacy desktop applications as well.

Note: Windows 10 actually prevents you from uninstalling some core built-in apps. To learn how to uninstall those apps, plase refer to Windows 10 Tip: Remove the Built-in Apps.

This is a fairly major change to Windows: in Windows 8—and in previous versions of Windows—uninstalling a desktop application requires you to know about and find the Programs and Features control panel. But Windows 10 makes this a bit easier.

For all Modern and universal Windows apps—save the built-in apps like Mail, Calendar, Microsoft Edge, Groove and others, which cannot be uninstalled—all you need to do is find the app’s tile or icon in Start or All Apps, right-click it (or tap and hold) and then choose “Uninstall” from the pop-up menu that appears.

A quick prompt will appear making sure you really intend to do this. And that’s it.

Desktop applications do require an extra step. So while a universal app uninstall will happen immediately after that one prompt, uninstalling a desktop application this way will cause the familiar (to power users) Programs and Features control panel to appear. Then, you can uninstall the application from there.

Additionally, Microsoft offers a Settings interface for uninstalling apps (Modern, universal) and desktop applications. You can find that in Settings (WINKEY + I), System, Apps and Features.

From here, you can uninstall apps and applications, and if you choose to uninstall a desktop application, it’s uninstaller will run directly without any need to invoke Programs and Features.