# Why does Windows 10 microsoft photos.exe always run and connect to the internet?



## Space Lynx (Sep 19, 2018)

clean install of win 10 and latest nvidia drivers released today. just have a couple games installed on steam is all.

rebooted a few times, etc etc. its been idle for awhile, etc.

last 3-4 hours it shows photos.exe has been active under my 1070 even though i have not opened it even once.... and it shows internet activity...  im really tired of M$'s crap.  I think I might be making switch to Linux permanently *unless someone can tell me how to disable photos in full,* I never use it anyway.


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## StrayKAT (Sep 20, 2018)

It's a UWP app, so it'd just be trying to connect to the Windows store to update. Either that or you have OneDrive enabled and it's checking for photos there.

To disable it in full, maybe check in the Services app, see if it runs any processes at start (which you can disable from there). Although I doubt it takes any resources worth caring about.


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## Space Lynx (Sep 20, 2018)

StrayKAT said:


> It's a UWP app, so it'd just be trying to connect to the Windows store to update. Either that or you have OneDrive enabled and it's checking for photos there.
> 
> To disable it in full, maybe check in the Services app, see if it runs any processes at start (which you can disable from there). Although I doubt it takes any resources worth caring about.



hmm ok thanks for answer, i have windows store uninstalled, as well as Edge, and one drive and defender disabled with Shut Up Ten... so its prob just constantly looking for a hookup and never get its... story of my life too photos.exe

yeah thats a joke for you dense folks ^


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## Solaris17 (Sep 20, 2018)

In power shell you can do it by


```
get-appxpackage *Microsoft.Windows.Photos* | remove-appxpackage
```

but it will probably come back during the next build update, and remember you need to set the default picture software after. You can just set it to paint or something.


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## Space Lynx (Sep 20, 2018)

Solaris17 said:


> In power shell you can do it by
> 
> 
> ```
> ...



That worked great, thanks! Do you have a command line that removes Cortana, cause I still see its processes running in task manager even though Shut Up Ten disabled it, lol

Also I won't be upgrading to next build. probably will wait 12 months, do the second next major build, since its every 6 months. and then do all this crap all over.


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## StrayKAT (Sep 20, 2018)

I'm just gonna say more power to you, to start with. 

But I wouldn't touch any of this myself (unless it was that edition of Windows that is completely stripped). I tend to find that screwing with MS stuff causes issues. And if you think about it too much, you're going to find it's tentacles reaching out to areas you didn't even notice before (*cough* registry). It can really be aggravating trying to run a "clean slate" type of Windows. Best not think about it imHo. And with modern computers, it barely makes a dent on performance anyhow. I used to be more obsessed about it in the Win9x days.


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## Solaris17 (Sep 20, 2018)

lynx29 said:


> That worked great, thanks! Do you have a command line that removes Cortana, cause I still see its processes running in task manager even though Shut Up Ten disabled it, lol
> 
> Also I won't be upgrading to next build. probably will wait 12 months, do the second next major build, since its every 6 months. and then do all this crap all over.



No unfortunetly you can use powershell to remove uwp's but cortana is integrated. there is a way but its manual and will break windows search I do not reccomend it

if you would like I have a script I run on my master image I deploy and I can give you the powershell to remove all apps, I think I leave calculator and the store itself.

Ill do it anyway for acedemic shouldnt matter if you want it or not others might.


```
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | where-object {$_.name -notlike "*Store*" -and $_.name -notlike "*Calculator*"} | Remove-AppxPackage -erroraction silentlycontinue

Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -online | where-object {$_.displayname -notlike "*Store*" -and $_.displayname -notlike "*Calculator*"} | Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -online -erroraction silentlycontinue
```

it removes all but the store and calculator.


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## Space Lynx (Sep 20, 2018)

Solaris17 said:


> No unfortunetly you can use powershell to remove uwp's but cortana is integrated. there is a way but its manual and will break windows search I do not reccomend it
> 
> if you would like I have a script I run on my master image I deploy and I can give you the powershell to remove all apps, I think I leave calculator and the store itself.
> 
> ...




Worked great, thank you. I just bookmarked this thread in my mods folder in chrome so I will always have those scripts handy for future clean installs.


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