Remove unwanted Windows programs, apps, features and folders

Windows 11 comes with plenty of preinstalled apps. Most of these apps are of no use to many users and take up unnecessary space on the C drive, which you need to install upgrades in the future and to install programs that you wish. There are temporary files, unwanted folders, caches, etc, that you can remove safely.

Remove unwanted Windows programs, features & junk in Windows 11

Free up more disk space in Windows 11/10 by removing pre-installed Microsoft Store apps, unwanted programs and junk files. This post also explains how to gain more speed by removing unwanted Windows features, by using these methods:

1. Uninstall Preinstalled Microsoft Store Apps
2. Use Storage Sense to Free up Disk Space
3. Empty the Temp Folder completely
4. Remove Unwanted Windows features & components
5. Delete MSOCache.

Let us take a look at them.

1] Uninstall Preinstalled Microsoft Store Apps

Many preinstalled Windows apps are of no use to most of us. You can always remove them from the Settings app.

1. Open Windows Settings
2. In the Settings window, click on Apps
3. Click on Apps and features: the window towards the right will be populated with the list of preinstalled Windows apps that you can remove
4. Click on an app to see the options Move and Uninstall.
5. Click on Uninstall to remove the application
6. After removing all the apps, close the Settings window.

NOTE: The Uninstall feature is not available for all Microsoft Store apps. Windows thinks some are essential, so you will not see the Uninstall button next to them.

2] Use Storage Sense to Free up Disk Space

Storage Sense is somewhat similar to the Disk Cleanup tool we discussed earlier in our post about Junk files in Windows.

1. Open Windows Settings
2. Click on System
3. Click on Storage in Left panel
4. In the right panel, click on C Drive to see what all is taking up space on the drive
5. After an analysis, you get details of what is taking up space on C Drive
6. Click on an item to get more options: If you click on Apps, you will get the Remove Apps dialog as explained in the above section; if you click on temporary files, you will get a window that has options to delete to temporary files
7. Clean up your PC using your discretion based on the options available
8. Close the Settings window.

3] Empty the Temp Folder completely

Empty the folder containing the Temporary files. While Disk Cleanup removes temporary files, it omits the most recent temporary files created in the last 7 days. To delete all the temporary files,

1. Press WinKey+R
2. Type cmd and press Enter
3. In the command line window, type DEL %temp%\*.*
4. Some files won’t be deleted as they may be in use, but it is perfectly safe to delete other temporary files
5. Type Exit to close the command line window.

4] Remove Unwanted Windows features & components

You can remove unwanted Windows features to speed up Windows.

1. Open the Programs and Features in Control Panel and click on Turn Windows Features On or Off
2. Check out what all features are installed and uncheck the features that you wish to remove
3. Click on OK to remove the features

Note: You can reinstall the features using the same method if you need any of the removed features.

Read: What can I delete from Windows folder?

5] Delete MSOCache

If you use MS Office desktop applications, you will see a folder called MSOcache in the root drive. The root drive is where the Windows OS runs – it is often the C drive on almost all computers unless you have configured a dual boot and installed Windows on a separate drive.

MSOCache is nothing but a cache of files related to Microsoft Office. Removing it will not affect your computer. You can remove it without any worries. Often, the MSOCache folder doesn’t use all the files in it. It keeps increasing in size as you work on MS Office applications. Deleting it won’t slow down MS Office either. To remove the folder, right-click on it and select Delete from the context menu. You can also select it and press the DEL key.

NOTE: If you delete MSOCache, you will not be able to repair Microsoft Office programs. You may even find it difficult to uninstall them if you need to.

You can also remove unwanted and obsolete Windows Registry entries to free up space. There are many third-party Free Registry and Junk Cleaners available. If you want to free up more space, you may want to read how to increase Disk Space in Windows.

Read: How to find and delete all Empty Folders in Windows 11.