Miracast

The Windows 10 Creators Update brought a handful of new built-in apps. Microsoft has made it difficult to remove them. I’m not quite sure why, but when you attempt to remove the application it does not give you the option: image

It’s installed under the name “Miracast view” as an appxpackage, which Microsoft has unfortunately denied you access to remove in PowerShell.

   get-appxpackage -allusers | where {$_.name -like “*mira*”} | remove-appxpackage

Running this command will fail with error “0x80073CFA, Removal failed. Please contact your software vendor.”. Well, thanks….

Fortunately, there is a method to uninstall this application to which I’ll explain below. Please be warned this will make potentially irreversible changes to your computer so always ensure you have a good backup before continuing.

First off you will need a couple of tools:

Psexec: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/sysinternals/bb897553.aspx DB Browser for SQLite: http://sqlitebrowser.org/

Step 1: Extract psexec.exe from pstools.zip you downloaded above. (Remember where you saved this)

Step 2: Install DB Browser for SQLite (or grab the portable version).

Step 3: Fire up the command prompt, and run psexec as system using the following command:

   psexec.exe -i -s -d cmd.exe

image

Step 4: Open DB Browser for SQLite as system, by executing the executable under command prompt running as system:

“C:\Program Files\DB Browser for SQLite\DB Browser for SQLite.exe” is the location if you installed the application to its default path.

Once open, click on the “Open Database” button at the top image

And open the following database file:

“C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\AppRepository\StateRepository-Machine.srd”

Now, click on the “Browse Data” tab, and change the table to “Package” image

Look under the PackageFullName column fo Windows.MiracastView_6.3.0.0_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy and change the value under the IsInbox column from a 1 to a 0 image

Press CTRL+S, or click on the “Write Changes” button at the top to save the file

Step 5: Remove application with PowerShell by opening up PowerShell as admin and typing in the following command:

get-appxpackage -allusers | where {$_.name -like “*mira*”} | remove-appxpackage

This time should be no errors: image

If anyone knows why Microsoft is making it so that this application cannot be removed from Windows please comment below. I’ve installed the ‘N’ version of Windows 10 Professional and this is not installed by default so I am curious to know why this is forced to stay.