How to uninstall programs in Windows 10 with system tools

Up until Windows 10, users could easily uninstall applications from their computers by going to the "Control Panel" and accessing the "Add/Remove Programs" feature. Obviously, you can still do that while using Windows 10, but now, there are also two new ways in which you can quickly remove programs from your system, which might prove to be a bit more efficient and faster than the traditional way.

Uninstall applications using Control Panel

As I've said before, Windows 10 kept the old "Add/Remove Programs" app from its earlier versions, but the location from where you can access it has been slightly changed. Instead of accessing it from the Control Panel by clicking on the "Add/Remove Programs" option, you will now find it under the name "Programs and Features".

Programs and Features

Once you have clicked on the highlighted item, a new window will appear that will show you all of the programs that you have installed on your computer and, in order to remove them, you can either right click on the desired one and select "uninstall" or you can press the "Uninstall" button from the menu bar.

Uninstall apps from Control Panel

Uninstall applications from the Start Menu

One of the fastest ways to remove unneeded programs from your computer in Windows 10 is by using the Start Menu.

Uninstall app from Start Menu

All you have to do is click on the start button, access the "All apps" list, find the one you want to remove, right-click on it and select the "Uninstall" option. Simple, isn't it?

You might notice that some of the applications installed on your computer can not be removed this way. That's because they are programs that come bundled with Windows 10. They can still be uninstalled, and I will show you how in the following lines.

Uninstall programs using the Settings app

If you don't want to randomly uninstall applications from your system, but also view additional information about them, then the new "Settings" app that Windows 10 provides you with can help you do that. You can find it under Start > Settings > System > Apps & features, or, for instant access, simply type "add/remove" in the search bar (the one from the taskbar) and click on the first result . After launching the app, you might have to wait a bit for the list of installed programs to be populated.

Uninstall apps from Settings

From here, you can view not only the list of installed applications, but also the date they were installed and how much of your hard disk space they occupy. You can also sort the programs by their name, size or installation date, choose to view the apps from specific drives or even search individual tools by their name.

To remove a program from your computer, all you have to do is click on its name and select the "Uninstall" option.

Uninstall Windows 10 built-in apps using PowerShell

While removing applications from your computer, you might have noticed that some of them don't offer an uninstall option or are not even present in the available programs list. I'm talking about pieces of software that come bundled with Windows 10 and can't be removed using the traditional methods. This is where a little automation tool, called PowerShell, comes into play.

Utilities like Calculator, Alarms, Clocks, Calendar, Mail, Money or most of the built-in apps can easily be removed by typing a few command lines. But first, in order to do that, you will have to launch PowerShell with administrator rights. Simply type PowerShell in the search bar, right click on it and select to run it as administrator.

Launch PowerShell

The generic command for removing Windows 10 built-in apps is the following:

Get-AppxPackage *name_of_program* | Remove-AppxPackage

In order to find the name of a specific program you want to remove (which you will place it instead of name_of_program from the mentioned command), you will have to run the Get-AppxPackage command in PowerShell. This will display a list of all the built-in apps in Windows 10.

Find app names in PowerShell

For example, to remove the Calculator app using PowerShell, you will have to type the following command:

Get-AppxPackage *windowscalculator* | Remove-AppxPackage

Also, if you want to uninstall Camera, simply use this command:

Get-AppxPackage *windowscamera* | Remove-AppxPackage

However, there are some important applications, like Cortana or Microsoft Edge that can't be removed and, instead, you will get an error message.

Conclusion

As you can see, you can remove programs, including the ones that don't offer an uninstall option, from your Windows 10 computer in several ways. It is up to you to decide which method suits you best and, if you have any questions or you are in need of clarifications regarding this topic, feel free to leave me a message in the comment section below.