Whenever my niece visits me, I let her play with my computers. Last weekend she was playing some computer games on my Windows 8 PC. Later I noticed that somehow she managed to accidentally uninstall many of the applications from the Windows. The problem is that Windows 8 makes uninstalling apps from the Start screen ridiculously easy. All you have to do is tap on an application tile a little longer and a menu appears from where you can uninstall it. Fortunately, you can disable this feature using the group policies. If you want to know how you can prevent users from uninstalling applications from the Start screen, then here is how:
- Click on the Desktop tile on the Start screen to switch to the Desktop mode. Alternatively, just hit the Windows logo key on your keyboard.
- Press the Windows logo key + R to open the Run dialog. Type gpedit.msc in the Run dialog and press Enter to start the Group Policy Editor.
- In the Group Policy Editor, navigate to User Configuration → Administrative Templates →Start Menu and Taskbar on the right side treeview. You would find a setting named Prevent users from uninstalling apps from Start as shown.
- Double-click on this setting to open its properties. In the properties window, select Enabled option and click on the OK button to save the setting.
- Restart Windows for the changes to take effect.
That’s it. After this the current user will not be able to uninstall apps from the Start screen. If you want to uninstall an application, then you can always go to the Control Panel and then Programs and Features category and uninstall any installed application from there.