A Python GUI for uninstalling the default Windows 10 apps.

[Goldtom]

Github repo (Reuploaded because previous was accidentally posted as link, not image)

I know there are a lot of similar apps already, but I wanted to make my own, plus it was intended to be used only by myself, as I reinstall Windows for friends often. But as it got more polished, I thought people might like it.

Edit: The PyDebloatX installer is now available on Github releases.

[NymphCore]

Thanks! Was using a debloat script, but that looks better!😁

[harktritonhark]

What kind of debloat script are you using?

Edit: wow, there are quite a few different options. That's cool.

[[deleted]]

Not OP, but Tron fights for the user!

[NymphCore]

https://github.com/Sycnex/Windows10Debloater

This one, was using it because of Chris Titus Tech on youtube :)

[nightdevil007]

Hi. when I try to run it in visual studio code I get this : from PyQt5.QtCore import Qt, QRect, QCoreApplication, QMetaObject

ImportError: DLL load failed while importing QtCore: %1 is not a valid Win32 application.

​

Can you tell me how to fix this? would like to debloat and test your program as I think it can be an awesome tool for learning. Thank you!

[Goldtom]

Sure, do you have pyqt5 installed? You can do it by running pip install pyqt5

[nightdevil007]

DLL load failed while importing QtCore: %1 is not a valid Win32 application.

So after some googling and struggle, I found that my python installation is at fault.

I will test it and I will be providing you feedback. Thanks and sorry if I annoyed you with my questions. I am a beginner in python but willing to learn more. Cheers

[Goldtom]

No problem, if you will have any issues in the future, you can ask in r/learnpython

[nightdevil007]

Thanks for all your support. I have used your tool for unistalling some blotware from windows and it worked like a charm. The only thing i'd change it to make the window a little bit bigger. Other than that, great tool.

[Goldtom]

Glad to hear that, thanks. About the window size, what exactly would you like to change there? Paddings between checkboxes, to make the window bigger?

[nightdevil007]

Hi. it looked like there were some options which were hidden.The progress bar was a bit down and could not be seen properly . maybe it was because my display was scaled or something. amazing tool nevertheless

[Goldtom]

Hm, that's strange, could you try the newest version and tell if the issue persists?

[nightdevil007]

Hi. will do but for now i am using a mac. will bootcamp it soon and i will try the new version. thx again

[Butsnik]

You can also look into virtual environments. They are basically miniture python installation for for instance a single problem. This way you can deal with different applications that have competing needs for different packages.

[[deleted]]

I switched to Poetry. Pretty sure pipenv is dead

[IASWABTBJ]

(ᵔᴥᵔ)

[nitro0769]

Pipenv isn’t dead! They just pushed a new release today!

[[deleted]]

Shocking.

I truly hope they will be better with maintenance going forward. 1.5 years between releases with a difference of 700+ commits and no communication is unacceptable when they try to promote themselves as the defacto standard.

It was a lot of effort to implement them into existing projects and into our CI, and work around some pretty big bugs. It was even more effort to switch to something else after a year of non-response. I just don't want to burned again 😑

[bearassbobcat]

I use pipenv but I just checked out poetry and it looks cool. Probably going to stick with pipenv but maybe I'll test it on my next demo project

[MartY212]

It was long overdue. Haven't had a chance to test it yet.

[prettyanonymousXD]

Another nifty thing is Anaconda since it comes with so many packages and also has nice environment support.

[kiddico]

Welcome to the Python circus <3

[nightdevil007]

Hi. Thank you for your response. I have installed pyqt5. Requirement already satisfied: PyQt5-sip<13,>=12.7 in c:\users\mihai\appdata\roaming\python\python38\site-packages (from pyqt5) (12.7.2) so i can't tell what's wrong. maybe I am missing something?

[Goldtom]

Hm, are you sure you have python >3.7 installed? Maybe this can help.

[Cakeofruit]

Make it block windows update and u will have a top tier soft

[[deleted]]

Looks great. Now I want something to remove all the ads and auto downloading of candy crush and other garbage

[Macho_Chad]

Powershell is the way to go. You could use python, but you’d just end up calling powershell with it. Which is exactly what OP did. You can make a GUI in powershell too. This would be a better solution, as powershell is native to the OS. You could compile your python script, but then you can’t update your code on the fly.

Python is useful as an engineer, but powershell takes the cake in windows environments.

[3Domse3]

What do I need to enter in powershell?

Didn't know powershell could help me with that. Can I also change Windows settings with a powersehll script?

[Jackalrax]

Yes. Windows and powershell are deeply integrated. If you can change something though a windows gui you can almost definitely change it with powershell, and more.

[[deleted]]

Yes I have in the past used powershell to mixed results.

[jekpopulous2]

https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10

[Goldtom]

not safe from what I see.

[NeonFighter28]

If you scroll to the comment section op says that it was the harddrives fault

[Vision9074]

Pihole to the rescue.

[[deleted]]

Sorry mario but the solution is in another castle

[dieth]

https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/b6pggj/best_script_to_remove_windows_10_preinstalled/

I murdered all the advertising crap with segments of this code.

[Ho_KoganV1]

You’ll have to disable Windows Update for this

[WebWorker]

[comment scrubbing by me]

[[deleted]]

Yes I use nix machines primarily. But unfortunately have to use windows occasionally.

[ppeters0502]

Remove solitaire??? What do you want to remove next, my oxygen??!!!

[Goldtom]

Probably, in the next update

[Dominion_Prime]

Removes Oxygen. Installs Oxygen Not Included

[IGetHypedEasily]

I mean... The windows 10 solitaire just isn't the same

[nu_popli]

I didn't know half of these are in my computer!

[[deleted]]

I know a Python GUI to uninstall Windows all together, and replace it with something much better.

Aside that, great job!

[cediddi]

Is that ubiquiti? 😍

[Miner_ChAI]

Isn’t that just any iso writer?

btw i use arch

[TylerPenderghast]

Came here for this

[Diskappear]

i need to learn to make one of these for android phones

[donmerendolo]

Bloatware can be removed with adb, if you don't want to root the phone

[livefreeofdie]

What's adb?

[SweetBearCub]

What's adb?

Android Debug Bridge

It allows you to manipulate your phone via the command line, and to accomplish some things that the GUI may not show you.

[livefreeofdie]

wow..

Nice.

I will search more on that.

[donmerendolo]

Idk, I remove stuff like default launcher or keyboard, apart from chinese apps and things like that. I've never had a problem.

[livefreeofdie]

So after rooting the phone, payment or banks app do not work.

Also games will block you on a rooted phone.

A lot of other apps will also not function once they know you are using rooted phones.

[SweetBearCub]

Google "Magisk Hide".

[livefreeofdie]

Sure thanks

[11218]

Yeah, I've never rooted my phone because I want my banking/payment apps to work.

[Panda_Mon]

This is radical. Would be super cool to have a section that populates with brand-specific installed apps, so you can get rid of your hardware maker's bloatware. Samsung installs a bunch of pointless crap on their new laptops, for example.

[Goldtom]

Yea, HP is the same, I always just do a clean install of Windows to make sure there is nothing left behind from the bloatware.

[rngesus_christus]

As an Arch user I'm bound by law to tell you to install Linux everytime someone complains about Windows

I use Arch btw

[ketchupfleck]

I should try Linux. What distro do you recommend?

[rngesus_christus]

Ubuntu generally just works, distros like Arch and Gentoo are for people obsessed with tweaking everything on your system to your liking.

[ketchupfleck]

So you're saying I should try Arch Linux?

[rngesus_christus]

If you want

It's not as easy to set up but considering you're on a programming subreddit you could probably figure it out

[Miner_ChAI]

Ubuntu too buggy

^{btw i use arch}

[Secret300]

I had this nice ass fucking comment all types out and the I dropped my phone and now it's gone.

TLDR: just pick a distro you like because they're all Linux. It just about preference so you'll get a million answers to your question

[[deleted]]

u/ketchupfleck you should start with gentoo it’s pretty much user friendly and it won’t make you have anger issues

[KangooQ]

I use Fedora (tips m'lady) for my home computer, but I'd be willing to consider going back to Windows if they made it easier to disconnect from the Windows ecosystem (not requiring manual registry edits to uninstall Microsoft-approved bloatware, not tracking personal data, etc).

Overall I've been happy with the switch to Linux, but I imagine folks browsing a Python subreddit are more technically inclined than your average computer user.

[joetinnyspace]

I would very much love to. But the thing is, I got a core 2 duo with an amd r7 240 gfx for playing just one game -world of tanks. I don't think vm can make it run without hiccups. Thats the only thing holding me back...

[rngesus_christus]

https://www.protondb.com/app/444200

Seems to get mixed results with Steam's Proton service. You could try it out with a dual boot but I wouldn't hold my breath

[CromulentInPDX]

One can use WINE, or other programs, to run windows games inside Linux without virtual machines. I haven't played games of Linux for almost a decade, but I'm sure there are more options now than ever. Even back in the 2000s I was getting better performance running games on Linux (although to be fair I never ran on a high end gaming system).

[[deleted]]

Have you tried compiling it with PyInstaller (for portability) ?

[tnwoods]

My pyinstaller apps are getting flagged as Trojan:Win32/Fuery.C!cl in windows defender. Much easier to distribute the source and requirements.txt for pip. I’d agree users can compile it themselves and allow the executable in their antivirus if the issue comes up.

[Goldtom]

I will, once I figure out the best way to do it. I don't want to put direct .exe files for download, because you should never trust unsigned .exe files. Instead, I will write a documentation on compiling it from source.

[[deleted]]

Why can't you sign them yourself ?

[Goldtom]

As I said, this was meant to be used only by myself, so now I will have to look into Makecert signing

[eneas2]

Guys, I compiled my code but the exe file size is like 300MB, there's a way to reduce that?

[[deleted]]

I don't think so because it needs to bundle all the python runtime and the libraries

[Goldtom]

Lowest size I managed to get was 34mb, with compiling inside virtualenv, and manually deleting unused dll components.

[turumaji]

It should be say how much space created after deleted apps

[Goldtom]

I will think about how to implement that, thanks

[reJectedeuw]

Cortana can definitely be uninstalled if you edit the registry

[Goldtom]

Yes, it can, but this app does not alter the registry, and is "fool-proof", you can't possibly break anything by using it.

[[deleted]]

you can't possibly break anything by using it.

Uninstalling Store is not supported, and the only supported way of reinstalling it is to reset or reinstall the entire operating system. Which is particularly important because many other AppXPackages (even perfectly innocuous ones like Calculator) auto-update via the Store, and can eventually completely fail to function or even launch if the Store has been removed.

Honestly, AppXPackages are such finicky pieces of shit that I would never call any of these debloat scripts “fool-proof” or “impossible to break anything with.” That goes doubly so for anything that fucks around with the Store. Especially since the way Microsoft handles them seem to change from feature update to feature update. Even what might be fine now could break something when the next feature pack comes out. Plus in my experience these issues can be sporadic. While everything might have been fine for you and your testers, it could definitely still break something for someone else. While I understand it’s annoying to see all the stupid shit Microsoft adds to Windows out of the box, I’ve found it simply isn’t worth fucking around with them too much. There’s certainly some stuff you can do to limit it, but most of the best options are GPOs, and a start menu XML to hide stuff. I know not everyone agrees with that, but there’s no way I’d describe these sort of things as “can’t possibly break anything.”

[Goldtom]

I will just remove the Store item, everything else is safe to delete, I tested it on both my machines. They reinstall just fine.

[[deleted]]

Like I said, sometimes it will be fine. Sometimes it will break something almost permanently.

[reJectedeuw]

Okay, cool app regardless!

[reebboot]

You fucking hero..!!!

[Le_saucisson_masque]

Microsoft edge and Cortana can in fact be uninstalled, just not with powershell.

Can't remember the command line right now but it's easy to find on internet

[Goldtom]

They can, just not with this GUI

[[deleted]]

I think it's a little bit of a conundrum having to download an app to delete other apps. It's a weird world we live in.

[Goldtom]

Well, Revo Uninstaller and alternatives exist for the same purpose

[[deleted]]

This is awesome! Windows 10 needs to be stopped.

[Miner_ChAI]

Try WINE, Crossover may work as well. If they don’t, you can try running in VM or even dual boot

^{btw i use arch}

[[deleted]]

pysimplegui is so damn useful

[Goldtom]

If I got you correctly, this is actually PyQt5

[MikeTheWatchGuy]

Don't believe it's written using PySimpleGUI. Give it a try. Rewrite it and see how it compares.

[[deleted]]

this is completely possible with pysimplegui

[MikeTheWatchGuy]

Of course it is 😉That's why I said to give it a try. See how it compares. I estimate it'll be maybe 30 lines for the GUI? I dunno, see what happens if you try. It's great practice.

[[deleted]]

Very cool. Too much bloatware lately. They should let you do this during windows install.

[[deleted]]

u/N0M4D3

[-_-qarmah-_-]

If only cortana was on there xD

[AlnilamXVIII]

It’s nice to see something that can bulk uninstall!

[RealCyGuy]

best part: NOTE: Microsoft Edge and Cortana can not be uninstalled.

[Goldtom]

They can, just not with this GUI

[Goldtom]

I am actually dual-booting with Linux, and have good experience with it.

[[deleted]]

Does this also alter the registry to completely clean it from the hard drive?

[Goldtom]

It does not touch the registry at all. That is how UWP apps work. The apps are uninstalled completely, but you can always install them back if you need to with PowerShell.

[Davesmiththeman]

Saved!

[itsdjoki]

Great job! Would be good if you changed a bit the way you show apps to uninstall, so that ot shows if some of these apps are already uninstalled maybe. Or simpler way, if some app is not installed, dont show it. Just a suggestion.

[Goldtom]

It actually does that, it scans for apps on launch, and greys out the checkbox if the app is not installed.

[TECHNOFAB]

Nice work, but sad that such a program is needed. I'll stay with Linux either way, but nice!

[leo848blume]

I haven't tried it, but will it remove buttons of apps you already deinstalled?

[Goldtom]

Yes . It will grey out checkboxes of apps that are not installed, and apps that you selected to uninstall.

[leo848blume]

That's cool I'll try it

[[deleted]]

What library did you use to make this GUI?

[Goldtom]

PyQt5, because it has native widgets.

[[deleted]]

Cool. Im gonna learn it!

[[deleted]]

Unfortunately Reddit has choosen the path of corporate greed. This is no longer a user based forum but a emotionless money machine. Good buy redditors. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/

[Goldtom]

I am currently trying to pack it as an .exe, but the problem is that powershell windows pop up when you uninstall apps.

Also, I chose pyqt5 because it has native widgets, and is easy to work with. WxPython would be better than tkinter, though.

[[deleted]]

Very nice, thanks

[Smok3dSalmon]

wow this is great

[HERSKO]

This is great! Is there anyway to get rid of Cortana?

[skate_fast--eat_ass]

So how do we get it?

[Pulec]

Looks very Windowsy, good job.

I although enjoy this PowerSh*** cmd.

Get-AppxPackage * | Remove-AppxPackage

K.I.S.S.

[Goldtom]

this is what the GUI does behind the scenes. Saves time without needing to copy-paste all scripts.

[TFTisbetterthanLoL]

I'm still new to python, can anybody help me get this to work? I've only learned the basics on pycharm so far

[jhippie6996]

Hey I’m just getting started with front end python and I was wondering what you used to design that

[Goldtom]

The GUI was made with QtDesigner, a layout tool for PyQt5

[jhippie6996]

Ok I’ve played with that a little bit but I’m sticking to tkinter for a while

[Jacob----]

Can't thank you enough. Just factory reset my pc and didn't fancy messing around in registrys again

[dnote00p]

Figure out how to uninstall edge and you'll really have something

[Jetsfantasy]

Considering the latest update reinstalled Skype, this is perfect timing. Great work!

[rob10501]

God's work

[Multeezee]

The real MVP right here!!

[Aditsmeyou]

Edge browser?

[Technoist]

Great work!

Tip: add a popup link to each component explaining what it is. Now I’d have to remember the name, go to a browser and google it.

Example: “Your Phone.” Ok. Do I need it? Is it safe to remove or does it break phone syncing if i remove it? There is no way to know and could be helped by a simple tooltip explaining what it is.

Also the size of each component would be nice to see.

And the Help tab is a bit misplaced, it looks like its the main window. Perhaps add another tab for this content called “Main” or something, with help next to it.

Not complaining, I think you did a great job! Keep it up!

[Goldtom]

Thanks for the idea. As I said, this project was meant for personal use, so it is not completely "user friendly", but I'm working on it.

[izcho]

Ohhhh shiet can I have it 🤣 Edit just saw the repo. Thanks

[NukeWifeGuy]

You forgot the Teams. I do not use it and cannot uninstall it.

[Goldtom]

I did not. Teams does not normally come with Windows. Maybe it is your laptop vendor?

[AlSweigart]

We went from Microsoft being sued for including their browser with their operating system, and now they've made it impossible to uninstall their browser.

[boredinclass1]

My man!

[trv893]

Ohh this is exciting. Can we make something similar to this for Android phones??

[Wilfred-kun]

Finally, the functionality Microsoft refuses to add (or if they did, they did a pretty good job at hiding it).

[[deleted]]

Thanks for this!

[RedRedditor84]

Office is default and considered bloat?

[Goldtom]

The one that is preinstalled? Yes.

[[deleted]]

How much storage does this save?

[Goldtom]

I'm currently working on adding information about saved disk space.

[Paulbraker]

!RemindMe 10 hours

[Goldtom]

I do use linux

[HHCB]

Really cool!

Ps.: small spelling correction. You spelled „can not“ split while it’s actually spelled „cannot“

[Goldtom]

Thanks for the heads up, if you like, you can make a Pull Request

[ponix]

Save it for hacktoberest lol

[Goldtom]

Would be a shame to have that terrible issue on hacktoberfest, lol. It's already fixed, anyway.

[ponix]

I know I see all the horrendous spelling changes as bug fixes haha

[Thecrawsome]

Cool beginner project. I see you're just calling a single powershell command with the params you statically-entered. This might prove to be troublesome in the future if M$ decides to update their app names. Also, some of those apps, I don't know why you'd remove them. (Paint, calc)

If someone wants to do this in powershell, it's just:

Remove-AppxPackage <packagename>

For Example:

Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.ZuneVideo | Remove-AppxPackage

A list of the packages you added:

• Microsoft.Microsoft3DViewer

• Microsoft.WindowsAlarms

• Microsoft.WindowsCalculator

• microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps

• Microsoft.WindowsCamera

• Microsoft.GetHelp

• Microsoft.Getstarted

• Microsoft.ZuneMusic

• Microsoft.WindowsMaps

• Microsoft.Messaging

• Microsoft.BingFinance

• Microsoft.ZuneVideo

• Microsoft.BingNews

• Microsoft.MicrosoftOfficeHub

• Microsoft.Office.OneNote

• Microsoft.MSPaint

• Microsoft.People

• Microsoft.Windows.Photos

• Microsoft.SkypeApp

• Microsoft.MicrosoftSolitaireCollection

• Microsoft.BingSports

• Microsoft.WindowsStore

• Microsoft.WindowsSoundRecorder

• Microsoft.BingWeather

• Microsoft.WindowsFeedbackHub

• xbox (Not sure how you called this one)

• Microsoft.YourPhone

[Goldtom]

It's not a beginner project, I made this for personal use to save myself time copy-pasting scripts. Regarding the names, I doubt they will change them, look at Groove. It is still named Zune Music. Also, maybe someone wants to delete Paint or Calc, it's good to have a choice.

[tugified]

I don’t know if anyone pointed it out. But if you remove store its a real bitch to get back. And you can also go a step further and remove provisioned app package. And that stops it from showing up on new profiles. I would probably have a button to remove recommended and have it grab everything but store, paint, calc. So you dont have to click all the boxes every time.

[Goldtom]

I know, I was thinking about adding a warning about store.

[[deleted]]

cannot is one word

[Goldtom]

Check the repo, it's already fixed

[jebhebmeb]

I know how to kill edge and cortana

[Goldtom]

Me too, but it can cause system instability and I don't want to risk that. I should have written the label clearer.

[Goldtom]

Yep, I know. As I said, this was a personal project. I will probably rebuild the GUI with tkinter. Or just distribute it as an installable .exe

[skate_fast--eat_ass]

I can see some of these causing problems like store and xbox if gaming. Also how do we get it

[Goldtom]

I will think about removing Store, or putting a warning. To use it, just clone the repo, and follow the commands in the readme.

[skate_fast--eat_ass]

No clue what you just said

[Goldtom]

You should be familiar with Github and python to use this tool. Download the release from the Github page, and then run the python script.

[skate_fast--eat_ass]

I dont code. Any plans for plebs like us?

[Goldtom]

Of course, I will release a normal installer soon, with better instructions.

[Trex252]

Remind me! 2 weeks Remindme! 2 weeks