Fixing broken Windows Store
Recently, I saw a few computers with Windows Store and a few other Apps disappeared after some Windows Updates. Generally, the lack of "Store" would be a good thing - I don't want any "modern apps" or games that Microsoft insists on installing on all computers, however... I use Sticky Notes and Calculator a lot and didn't want to find a replacement for these. There are some other useful apps for home users too so I needed to find a way to fix it.

First, things that DIDN'T work.
1. WSReset.exe command resets the store cache. The problem is, it was trying to open the Store and because it was missing from the computer, would ask what program to open it with. Um, itself!

2. Microsoft has a troubleshooting utility that claims to fix all Store problems... not so fast. I downloaded it from here, it asked me to sign in to a Microsoft account, which I did. I had to reopen the tool and was presented with this dialogue

Sure, let's reset. It did something for a minute and failed to fix it with the same error message as from step 1.

Didn't allow me to submit feedback though 🙂

3. Next, I tried Windows All-in-one-Repair from tweaking.com. They make an awesome free app that allows fixing many Windows issues in a semi-automated way. Didn't work either and the message I saw was "This repair is currently disabled for this version of Windows due to the constant changes to the app store"...

4. Next, I tried Powershell. It's very useful to script things and sometimes is the only way to get something done in Windows. There are plenty of tutorials on the Internet but most commands are pretty simple and can be just copy-pasted with little modifications.
open the command prompt as admin, type powershell.exe and then the commands below
Set-ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted
Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register
"$($_.InstallLocation)AppXManifest.xml"}

Did something for a few minutes but the Store still didn't work.

5. Tried "SFC /scannow" and it said no corruption was found
6. Same with DISM and the variety of switches (ScanHealth, CheckHealth, RestoreHealth) - all clean!

This is what finally worked.
I noticed that the PowerShell commands from step #4 used files AppXManifest.xml. I searched for the files and found a hidden folder C:\Program Files\Windows Apps. I didn't have access to it so had to change the owner to the logged in user account and add the required permissions. Don't forget to change it back to the TrustedInstaller afterwards!

I copied the missing Store app folder from a known good computer. It appears that the folder contents depend on the edition of Windows, so if you are trying to fix Windows 10 Pro, make sure you copy the folder from the identical Windows 10 Pro setup. Mine looked like Microsoft.WindowsStore_11706.1002.9.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe, yours could be different. Now, some PowerShell magic.

After this, you'll need to make sure the proper permissions are set. A common cause of many problems is not having Full Control permissions for "ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES". As soon as I did that, I was able to open the Store and install the only apps I use - Sticky Notes and Calculator. I really wish Microsoft had kept them as regular apps but they clearly didn't listen to my feedback!

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