Similar folders to WindowsApps

I was really surprised when I tried to open WindowsApps folder and got the message "you have been denied permission to access this folder". After some research I learned it is a protected windows folder.

The WindowsApps folder is a protected system folder located at C:\Program Files that contains all apps installed from the Microsoft Store, including pre-installed ones. It is not meant to be directly accessed or modified by users for security reasons, as it is owned by a special user account called TrustedInstaller and is sandboxed for protection. Attempting to access it will result in a permissions denial message.

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So that got me curious. Are there any other folders similar to WindowsApps where you have to change the ownership of a folder to view it?

There are quite a few folder that will deny access.
Unless you really need to get into them, it's probably a good idea to leave them alone.
And ofc, it's always a good idea to use 3rd party backup software.

Be very careful with these...








Here's some other things that you may find useful...

UWP-based apps have a specific security model for app and data protections, and don't allow for casual folder viewing or file modifications.

Non-removable default Windows apps are installed in "C:\Windows\SystemApps"
Removable Store apps are installed in "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps"

In general, you should never attempt to delete or update individual files in those folders. There are ways to get control over them, but following those methods tend to lead to bad user errors.

cokedude said:

Are there any other folders similar to WindowsApps where you have to change the ownership of a folder to view it?

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garlin said:

Removable Store apps are installed in "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps"

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You can browse the Store apps folder without changing any ownerships or permissions by using Treesize [Free].


Denis

cokedude said:

Are there any other folders similar to WindowsApps where you have to change the ownership of a folder to view it?

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There are quite a number of protected files that a user does not have permission to access. They are protected for a reason and, If one is wise, he will NOT change permissions of these files.

glasskuter said:

If one is wise

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Good point. I'm not. So, lost my Windows in a horrible accident caused by a person called "me".

AFAIK SystemApps can be viewed normally but WindowsApps cannot. I still wouldn't touch either of these folders though.

cokedude said:

Are there any other folders similar to WindowsApps where you have to change the ownership of a folder to view it?

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glasskuter said:

There are quite a number of protected files that a user does not have permission to access.

Click to expand...

In the case of C:\Program Files\WindowsApps while you can't browse this from explorer, because explorer shouldn't be running with admin rights, you can open folders it contains in explorer, and browse those.

Poweshell has a command Get-AppxPackage which returns information about apps accessible to the current user without needing admin rights. On its own the command will give you screenfuls of information. However it can be constrained to only provide the directory paths of the apps.

(Get-AppxPackage).InstallLocation

will provide a full list of directory paths for both WindowsApps and SystemApps. Copy any one of those and paste into the address bar of explorer to examine the contents. You can filter the output using the -match operator. For example:

(Get-AppxPackage).InstallLocation -match 'WindowsApps'

will only show directory paths of WindowsApps. If you know what you want to find, you could use a more specific match term such as photos. You'll be able to read the files.

This shows that you don't need to have read permissions on every intermediate directory in a path. It's a feature of windows described as "Bypass traverse checking". If you switch between Windows and Linux, you may notice that Linux doesn't do this.

However, I've only found one use for looking at files in these directories. The appxmanifest.xml file will contain information about any context menus for Apps that provide them. which is useful if you want to suppress those context menu items. There's even a powershell command Get-AppxPackageManifest to access the manifext directly.

In all honesty, there are no "user serviceable parts" underneath the UWP folders. Seriously.

Maybe you can replace a visual resource like an icon, but that will eventually trigger a SFC error. You can remove any removable app, but removing a non-removable app is tricky since a future Windows Update can randomly replace it again (because it was patched). Hacking the manifest is not simple, and involves other considerations.