Solution: Windows 10: Unable to start Appstore apps

Ok, I went ahead and upgraded to Windows 10. everything went smoothly, all my settings and installed apps preserved and work without a hitch. I am loving the interface and getting along with Cortana pretty good.

But after a while I encountered a weird issue: Appstore installed apps – e.g. Calendar, Mail etc. even Windows AppStore itself wouldn’t launch. I’d either get a cryptic error message, something along the lines “Application did not start, please contact system administrator” or very briefly a window would appear and immediately closed.

Looking into Event log was a bit more explanatory, but not too much: “Microsoft.WindowsStore_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App failed with error: Access is denied. See the Microsoft-Windows-TWinUI/Operational log for additional information.

If you google it – you will find many possible explanations of the problem and many possible ways to solve it offered, but none of those worked for me. Finally I figured it out (and Event Log entry gave me a clue): C:\Program Files\WindowsApps folder was missing necessary permissions:

WindowsApps

Namely, “ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES” was missing read & execute permissions on that folder (had to to uncheck “Hide protected operating system files” in Control Panel, File Explorer options to be able to see it). Once I added correct permissions – appstore apps started launching with no problems.

5 replies on “Solution: Windows 10: Unable to start Appstore apps”

  1. Hi Yuriy, I have the same problem in windows 10 but when I watch the folder WindowsApps, in the security tab, the ALL APPLICATIONS PACKAGES option is not shown. I don’t know if it is hidden or missing. If it is hidden, how can I put it on?
    Thanks.

    Gustavo

  2. Hi Yuriy, I’m here again. I found how to do it, but still my apps are not working. Could you explain me in a more detailed way your procedure. I wanna check it in case I did something bad.
    Thanks.

    Gustavo

  3. Hello, I cannot find ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES just like Gustavo. How can I add it?

  4. Thank you so much!
    I reinstalled Windows 10 because the Search was messed up and then after Windows couldn’t open any pictures. The Photos app was triggering a “permission denied” error. Then I found your web site and you saved the day! 🙂

    Note: I had to take ownership of the WindowsApp folder to change the permission… even then I had some errors when I applied the “Full control” to Administrators. I kept hitting “Continue” despite the errors and after I was able to set permissions to All Application Packages user. Now it works!

  5. Thank you!

    You saved me, i’ve been through so much untill I found your article; I reinstalled my windows 2 or 3 times (can’t remember), tried the powershell, removed all apps and nothing made it work.

    Anyways, thank you very much!

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