Solved Prevent installation of Outlook and Dev Home

Hello,

I finalized a new build from which I removed the UWP apps I didn't need but when I deploy it, as soon as it finds the Internet, it downloads and auto-installs the Dev Home and Outlook apps. I really have no need for those apps and it's distracting to have things in the menu.

I'm speculating that there's some reg key that some resource reads to determine if the OOBE is completed and starts the auto-install feature. Is there any way to find what resource is doing this or maybe something in the registry that could be manipulated to get rid of this behavior?

If anyone knows any way or has any ideas, I'm all ears. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Edit: And while I'm at it, if anyone knows a way to perevnt the updates check for the UWP apps, it would be highly appreciated too. For some apps, I only like the more simpler older versions but Microsoft force updates on me. I'm sure there's a way to do it. If somebody could guide me, I shall be grateful.

From your unattended file, apply these changes during "specialize" pass:

WU normally updates all downloadable UWP apps.

See here.

ceo54 said:

Edit: And while I'm at it, if anyone knows a way to perevnt the updates check for the UWP apps, it would be highly appreciated too. For some apps, I only like the more simpler older versions but Microsoft force updates on me. I'm sure there's a way to do it. If somebody could guide me, I shall be grateful.

Click to expand...

You could try the open sourced Simplewall, henrypp / simplewall GitHub

garlin said:

From your unattended file, apply these changes during "specialize" pass:

Code:

reg delete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsUpdate\Orchestrator\UScheduler_Oobe\DevHomeUpdate" /f
reg delete "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsUpdate\Orchestrator\UScheduler_Oobe\OutlookUpdate" /f

WU normally updates all downloadable UWP apps.

Code:

reg add "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\WindowsStore" /v "AutoDownload" /t REG_DWORD /d 2 /f

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Thank you, Mr. Garlin. Exactly the kind of solution I was looking for. This is just a straight forward no BS solution that I can integrate in the offline image or as you suggested, parse in the specialize phase and make it permanent without having to bother with it ever again. This is the reason I prefer Registry editing to make the changes above every thing else.

A million thanks, your help is highly appreciated. Glad to have guys like you here.

Marcus Vinicus said:

See here.

Uninstall or Reinstall Dev Home app in Windows 11 and Windows 10

This tutorial will show you how to uninstall or reinstall the Dev Home app for your account or all users in Windows 11 and Windows 10. Starting with Dev Home Preview version 0.9, support for Windows 10 was added. Dev Home is a new control center for Windows providing the ability to monitor...

www.elevenforum.com

Click to expand...

Gotta have those bookmarked along with a lot of stuff Powershell is capable of for the times when Imcrosoft dums yet another stupid idea on my mahine with asking me. Thank you for liking me the tutorial. Your contribution is highly appreciated.

Fabler2 said:

You could try the open sourced Simplewall, henrypp / simplewall GitHub

View attachment 124383

Click to expand...

I tried looking in the SystemApps folder to see what binaries are there and which ones connect to the web to check and download the updates but I didn't have enough permissions. I could solve that but I don't want to play with the system audit policy. This, however, is a neat solution. Thank you for brining this to my attention, your help is highly appreciated.