Back in October of 2016, Windows Insiders were buzzing when they realized that a Windows 10 Insider build allowed them to uninstall certain stock Windows 10 apps. Now three months removed from this, Insiders have once again taken to Reddit, and have noted that the feature has since been removed in the latest builds.
We took to our machine, which is running Windows 10 Home Insider Preview, build 15014.1000, to verify these claims and have found them to be true. As seen in the above screenshot, the Mail and Calendar apps, which were previously able to be uninstalled in the October 2016 Windows Insider builds, can no longer be removed from our machine with the latest build. Along with Mail and Calendar, several other apps such as Calculator, Maps, Movies, OneNote, Voice Recorder, Xbox also currently have their options to be removed grayed out. These apps were all previously removable, but this is clearly not the case anymore.
Interestingly enough, we also tested another machine, which is running Windows 10 Pro Insider Preview build 15014, and found that the same list of uninstallable apps applied to both machines. Between the two, however, there was one special case, since the Groove Music app did not appear in the list of apps in settings, and was also not able to be uninstalled.
For now, one can assume that this might just be a temporary known issue or bug, (as it was in the case of the missing on-screen touchpad) and the feature might return soon. Until then, be sure to keep it tuned to OnMSFT, as we will be here to bring you all your Windows 10 news and information.
