Has anyone removed the Microsoft store?

Helmut said:

You should not remove the MS Store, there are many things that come via the MS Store not just UWP Apps, there are things like Applications, Graphics control panels, Elements/features of Windows you may use and so forth.

e.g. I have New Outlook and Thunderbird installed, used daily. Both are in the MS Store. Less used but Diagnostic Data Viewer, WiFi Analyzer are installed via the MS Store.

Essentially, removal sabotages your use of your PC/Laptop, increases workload.

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Store App is only required if you don't know to download package files from a site like store-rg-adguard.net (which searches for download links from the MS back-end that serves the Store).

There are two different types of apps distributed on the Store: UWP (or "Store apps") and normal Win32 apps repackaged for the Store. Firefox or Thunderbird are not UWP apps, but fall under the Win32 category. You can distinguish the two by their Product ID's.

9xxxxxxx is an UWP app
XPxxxxxxxxx is a Win32 app

Win32 apps are the same software you can get from the publisher on their websites, without going on the Store. Xbox Game Pass can be considered another category of major Win32 apps which are similarly released in this manner.

Helmut said:

"Do you guys let Windows update the apps in the store?"
I have MS Store items on manual updates.

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UWP apps can be updated by one of three methods. Windows Update will silently update installed apps, unless you disable it by GPO. Or you can run the Store App to check for newer versions. You can also download a newer (or actually older) version from store-rg-adguard.net.

There's nothing special about the Store app other than keeping a "purchase history" for your MS Account, and allowing you to buy licensed content. Where some users get into trouble is they use Remove-AppxPackage to randomly remove required packages that allow other Windows app to run.