How to stop Windows 10 from installing Candy Crush and Disney Magic Kingdom?

Question

Unfortunately, in this particular case the issue is a little more complicated than usually:

As soon as Windows 10 starts, it wants to install both "Disney Magic Kingdoms" and "Candy Crush":

Right clicking one of them and selecting uninstall removes it. Doing the same with the second app, causes the first one to show up again. And this keeps happening in an endless loop: As soon as one app gets removed, the other one shows up again. Well, and after a reboot, both apps are there again for installation. In other words: There seems to be no way to get rid of them.

Do you know of any reliable way to uninstall those two annoying apps?

Here's what I've tried so far:

1. Fully installed those two apps, rebooted the system and uninstalled them. Still Windows immediately wants to reinstall them.
2. Disabled Update apps automatically in Microsoft Store App -> Settings.
3. Set HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ContentDeliveryManager\SilentInstalledAppsEnabled = 0
4. Set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\CloudContent\DisableWindowsConsumerFeatures = 1
5. Set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\WindowsStore\AutoDownload = 2
6. Set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsStore\WindowsUpdate\AutoDownload = 2
7. Run Disk cleanup to delete all unnecessary files.
8. Tried a clean reboot to uninstall those apps.

Update:

9. In safe mode both apps ain't listed under Apps and features anymore, and hence can't be uninstalled there. They are still at the start menu though. Trying to uninstall by right clicking at the start menu just does nothing.

10. Settings app -> Personalization -> Start disabling Show suggestions occasionally in Start. After this, the behavior is the same as in safe mode: Both apps don't show up at Apps and features, but are still listed in the start menu - right clicking them and selecting Uninstall has no effect.

11. Updating windows had no effect as it's already up to date.

12. Uninstalling through power shell is not possible because both apps don't show up. Even if they're installed.

Unfortunately, none of those helped. Do you have any other ideas?

Answer 1

It seems like the problem got fixed in Windows 10 patch KB4345421. After uninstalling the apps today, they finally got removed.

Now, there's one odd thing about KB4345421: It was already installed on the day the original question was posted. Meanwhile it got installed two more times. The last installation of the patch (one day after the question was posted) seem to have finally fixed the issue. So if you suffer from the same issue, try to uninstall and reinstall KB4345421.

Answer 2

This issue is related to Windows 10 Consumer Experience.

You need to go into group policy and navigate to "Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Cloud Content", select "Turn Off Microsoft Consumer Experiences" and Enable it.

Once You Have Done This. Set the Following Reg Key
"[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\CloudContent] DisableWindowsConsumerFeatures=dword:00000001"

Uninstall both Candy Crush & Disney Magic Kingdom (If They are Currently Installed Of Course), and restart the computer.

They should no longer try and download.