[SOLVED] Windows Store and built-in UWP apps (Calculator, Calendar, etc) won't run after 1809 update

[Darksider13]

So title summarizes the issue well.

I updated from 1803 to 1809 a couple of days ago and noticed that my Xbox App wouldn't open when I clicked on the icon. I did some troubleshooting and tried resetting the app through Settings. When I did that, for some reason Windows considered the app uninstalled. Long story short, I manually uninstalled the xbox app and was able to download and install it from the Windows Store. Though it still wouldn't run after reinstalling.

On a suggestion from a thread I was reading through to help fix the problem, one suggestion was to reset the Windows Store app through settings. I did that and now none of my UWP apps (except edge and settings) will only open a window with their logo on it and close within 3-5 seconds of doing so. I tried a laundry list of solutions last night for about 5 hours and I just ended up making things worse so I was suggested to run a repair install of my windows installation using the Media Creation Tool.

I did that and have at least fixed everything I broke last night. I'm back to square one of not being able to open any of the UWP apps. I've tried re-registering/reinstalling the Store app with PowerShell (process completes but app still doesn't open). I've tried WSReset which just throws me the error message of "ms-windows-store: PurgeCache, The app didn't start" after running every time.

I've tried making a new user account and tried running the app from there, running a UWP app from the new user account doesn't even yield the window opening up with the app's logo on it. Nothing happens upon clicking a UWP app image. Calculator, Paint 3D, nothing happens. I've tried doing all of these things on the builtin Admin account as well, same results all around.

Thing to note: On both the Admin and new user accounts, the Windows Store is apparently not even considered to be installed for some reason. Whenever I run WSReset with the Admin or second user account, when WSReset finishes it just brings up a window asking me to select the default app to use to run ms-windows-store. Any time I try to search for the Store app in either account, I can't find it, even through settings. I did manage to get the Store tile to show up under "Explore" on the left side of the Start menu when I click start in my second user account but again, upon clicking it, nothing at all happens.

Anybody know what I should do? I can't revert to 1803 because I had to run the install repair this morning so that build is bye-bye unfortunately (not to mention reverting to 1803 would've been a nightmare in and of itself for me anyway) so that's not even an option at this point. I also cannot reinstall windows from scratch because this is the computer I use for work and personal purposes. I'm already taking a whole day off to figure out how to fix this issue (I rely on Windows Store apps, primarily UWP apps for my job). So yeah, would love any help anyone could provide.

P.S. I've also tried downloaded and built-in versions of the MSFT troubleshooter for both Windows Update and Windows Store apps. All troubleshooting has yielded zero results or zero reports of issues. So I'm at a total loss right now.

 

[Darksider13]

PARTIAL SOLUTION!

So after messing around with my second user account to see if I could magically make the Windows Store appear on said account, I did manage to reinstall the windows store onto both my second account and my main account. Problem is, on both accounts, all of the built-in apps like 3D Viewer, Maps, Calculator, etc. are all unable to install from the Windows Store. I feel like I have a larger issue here involving app updating/installing permissions?

I have not messed with the WindowsApps folder since doing the repair install this morning. So this is definitely something brought on by the new update. Though I'm glad I'm making progress, I'm not out of the woods yet. I'll be updating with solutions as I go along.

In the meantime, if anyone else can provide solutions to expedite all of this, that'd be awesome. At this point, I'm trying to figure out why the windows store won't install any apps. The error code on all of them is 0x80246013

 

[Darksider13]

(Potentially) FULL SOLUTION!!!!

So there's no guarantee that this has permanently solved all of my problems but after doing what I did in the above post (setting up a second user account with an active Microsoft Online Account and giving said user full Admin privileges), I noticed that neither the secondary account nor the built-in admin account were able to run The Windows Store or any other UWP apps. After repairing my installation this morning with the Media Creation Tool, I decided to go back to basics and figure out what I could do to give my second user account the ability to run the windows store.

So after running the re-registration command SPECIFICALLY for the Windows Store through powershell:

Get-AppxPackage -allusers Microsoft.WindowsStore | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

I could then use the Windows Store on both user accounts (did not test with the built-in Admin account but I'm assuming it would work, I've spent too much time on this issue today to check that account now but the overall issue has been relatively solved so yeah) but encountered that some apps were still broken (wouldn't run) like Calculator and Photo Viewer.

I restarted my computer and jumped right into my main account (the one I discovered this issue on) and tried re-registering all apps through Powershell:

Get-AppXPackage | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

Though not all apps worked after this and I did get some errors when running this command, some did manage to restore. I then tried running the same command on my second user account and it had the same effect. No new apps were repaired. I then discovered that after running the command on my second user account that the damaged apps from before (except Photo Viewer) had been deleted from my computer (like Calendar and Xbox Accessories). Thankfully, those apps were available on the Microsoft Store to redownload and I did just that!

I returned to my main account to finish updating/reinstalling apps that were missing and I did have two corrupted applications that had to be uninstalled. Though they reinstalled just fine (except for the Microsoft Wi-Fi app, which I cannot seem to redownload anywhere but I don't use Wi-Fi on my desktop ever so it doesn't really implicate me much)!

Now the only inexplicable fix that I had was with my photo viewer app. That app never uninstalled and I never manually uninstalled it myself but upon a simple restart after doing all of the above, the photo viewer app now works as usual!

Everything (so far as I can tell) is back to normal! After exactly 12 hours of digging with no solution to my problem whatsoever, I finally managed to just do it myself.

SO, as a TL;DR for those who have this issue and don't need to know the nitty gritty, this was my record of events:

1. I updated my windows installation from 1803 to 1809 via the Windows Update tool

2. I discovered that my Xbox App wasn't running (only app that wasn't, everything else was fine)

3. I tried to fix Xbox App issue but instead ended up making all UWP apps inaccessible

4. Toyed around with permissions, regedit, and more in an effort to fix my issue

5. Made things worse so I used the Media Creation Tool to run a repair on my installation

6. Fixed all of what I did the night before but brought me back to square one

7. Activated second user account and built-in Admin account (Make sure second user account you make has an active Microsoft Online Account using a valid Email, this won't work otherwise. You can probably use a throwaway. Also make sure second user account's privilege is Admin!)

8. Noticed that neither new user nor Admin even had the UWP apps

9. Ran powershell in admin from second user account (this will not work if you do this from the main account in which you discovered the issue, though you can try, it didn't work for me) and executed command:

Get-AppxPackage -allusers Microsoft.WindowsStore | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

10. Windows Store was now usable within both accounts!

11. Let Windows Store update what it can (will probably tell you most apps can't be installed or updated with error codes)

12. After it updated what it could, I ran this command in PowerShell as admin from the second account

Get-AppXPackage | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

13. Restarted computer (make sure you log out of second account before restarting) and logged in as main account.

14. Uninstall currently corrupted apps and reinstall them through the Windows Store. If you can't find them through the Windows Store, see if you can manually find the app files yourself and install them manually through the WindowsApps folder. If you have a second computer running the same version of windows as the computer at issue, try pulling the app files from that PC.

P.S. 15. Run WSReset for good measure! (Go to search and type in WSReset, right click that icon and click run as administrator)