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
    2013-10-18T20:29:49+00:00

    OK so it looks like having Avast 2014 installed/running during the update process causes the issue. I'll open a support ticket with them. Thanks everyone for chiming in.

    In the mean time, I'm trying to figure out some way of deleting the dead shortcuts. I figured out how to access C:\Program Files\WindowsApps using the instructions here.

    But what I can't figure out is which item in \WindowsApps each broken URI in All Apps corresponds to. Here are my broken URIs:

    ms-resource:///photo/residAppName

    ms-resource:app_name

    ms-resource:chatAppTitle

    ms-resource:manifestDisplayName

    ms-resource:ShortProductName

    Does anyone know which item(s) in \WindowsApps the above correspond to? I suspect that all we have to do is delete them and then (if necessary) reboot the PC to solve the problem :)

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-10-18T21:03:37+00:00

    I'm having the same issue, Lenovo y410p with Avast 2014 installed during the upgrade process. Is there any available fix to this, since they're incredibly annoying.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-10-18T21:04:54+00:00

    I have the exact same 5 as you.

    Had Avast running.

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