Broken modern app shortcuts in Windows 8.1 after updating from Windows 8

Anonymous
2013-10-18T05:50:08+00:00

EDIT: See Page 3 for the solution to this problemNOTE: Please click the "Me too" link to the right of this post if you experiencing this issue so that Microsoft and Avast take notice of it. Thanks.

Short Story: Avast 2014 appears to interfere with the app shortcut cleanup process that occurs during the 8 -> 8.1 update. Also, Windows 8.1 really needs an easy/elegant way to remove dead Modern app shortcuts as you can with dead desktop app shortcuts

I updated from Windows 8 Pro x64 with Media Center on my 2 machines (Ivy Bridge Core i3 & i7) via the Windows Store and have had multiple broken/dead app shortcuts in All Apps on both machines as seen in the red rectangle below (direct image link):

When I attempt to launch any of the apps by clicking the shortcuts, I get the following message (the "Microsoft.Camera" part is specific to 1 of the shortcuts I tried) (direct image link):

Clicking the Go to the Store link only produces this message in the Windows Store app (direct image link):

Returning to All Apps and right clicking any of the dead shortcuts to remove it exposes no such option. There's no way to uninstall the app (it's probably gone already gone anyway) and also no way to remove the dead shortcut. As you can see below. the only options are Pin to Start and Customize (direct image link):

Does anyone know how to remove the dead shortcuts? I've tried going to *C:\Program Files\WindowsApps*, but access to that is denied and I can't find any way to give myself permissions for it. The offending shortcuts aren't listed in Control Panel -> Programs and Features, C:\Users<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs, or C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu either. Microsoft's own Apps Diagnostic utility doesn't fix it, and neither does syncing app licenses within the Windows Store app.

Help? Any ideas? TIA

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Microsoft Store

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Anonymous
2013-10-19T03:11:59+00:00

OK -- I FIXED IT.

Through a lot of trial and error.

Head to users/user/appdata/local/microsoft/windows/applicationshortcuts

Once there do a search for each file within application shortcuts using the search bar in the top right of the explorer, you might need to play with the search terms. For example, mine found the photo app when I searched 'modern' but not 'photo'. Odd.

I used the following terms, camera, microsoft ((for skydrive)), bing, modern.

You need to delete the little white shortcut tile (I had to adjust security settings first and give myself permission to delete within the app shortcuts file, but Windows will guide you through it.)

For the chat app, just delete and reinstall the calendar/people/mail group and its gone.

Hope it works for you guys too...

this worked like a charm, thanks

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Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2013-10-19T00:03:14+00:00

OK -- I FIXED IT.

Through a lot of trial and error.

Head to users/user/appdata/local/microsoft/windows/applicationshortcuts

Once there do a search for each file within application shortcuts using the search bar in the top right of the explorer, you might need to play with the search terms. For example, mine found the photo app when I searched 'modern' but not 'photo'. Odd.

I used the following terms, camera, microsoft ((for skydrive)), bing, modern.

You need to delete the little white shortcut tile (I had to adjust security settings first and give myself permission to delete within the app shortcuts file, but Windows will guide you through it.)

For the chat app, just delete and reinstall the calendar/people/mail group and its gone.

Hope it works for you guys too...

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-12-10T19:47:54+00:00

    Thanks,   I found it easily with your directions.   Windows 8.1 is so confusing.

    Rose

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-11-18T16:31:56+00:00

    Hello Akash,

    Welcome to Microsoft Community forum.

    If after trying all the steps provided in the previous post and issue is still persisting, this issue might occur if the Store app is corrupt.  

    So I would suggest you to re-register Store app and check if it fixes the issue.  

    • Press Windows key and X at the same time.
    • Choose Command Prompt (Admin) from the context menu.
    • Run the below mentioned command to re-register Store app:

    powershell -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register $Env:SystemRoot\News360\AppxManifest.xml

    For more clarification you may follow the suggestion provided in the following article.

    http://blogs.msdn.com/b/notime/archive/2013/10/21/10458031.aspx 

    Note: This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, you can refer to the following steps to back the registry files on the computer:

    • Press Windows and R keys to open the run box.
    • Type ‘regedit’ and press Enter from the keyboard.
    • Open the file option on the menu bar.
    • Click on Export and save the file with a name on the desktop.
    • If you want to restore the file, you can do so by double clicking the file that you have saved on the desktop.

    If the issue still persists, I would suggest you to provide the event viewer log files to find out the exact cause that is causing the issue.  Follow the steps to collect the log files:

    • Go to the Start Screen, type in Event Viewer. This will bring up the Event Viewer tile, Click to open the event viewer.
    • In the left pane, expand out Windows Logs. Click on Application log and highlight the first event in the log and use your arrow keys to scroll down.
    • Most of your event will be Information. You may see Yellow Warnings or Red Errors. If you see any red error, you can double click on it to bring it up and copy the contents to a document.

    Do get back to us with the result and we will be happy to assist you if required. 

    Regards.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-10-29T20:20:04+00:00

    my store dosent open other apps also do not open,

    when i click the store icon is just goes to the taskbar but it dosent show up

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