Today I’m going to share an experience I had with troubleshooting random UWP application crashes on my Windows PC. I will share what fixes I tried to resolve the crashing issue of Microsoft Store apps. If Microsoft Store apps keep crashing or freezing on your Windows 11/10 computer, you can try these fixes to resolve the problem.
Microsoft Store apps keep crashing or freezing
Below, I have shared my experience. Use these fixes if the Microsoft Store apps keep crashing or freezing on your Windows 11/10 computer.
- Temporarily disable your security software
- Troubleshoot in a Clean Boot state
- Run the System File Checker
- Check for Windows Update
- Reinstall Microsoft Store
- Reset Microsoft Store
- Fix Operating System 5 errors
Let’s start.
1] Temporarily disable all security software
In spite of a clean install, Windows Store apps were crashing. So my first hunch was to disable all security software that was running on the machine since it tends to sometimes interfere with Windows applications that are trying to connect to the Internet. This may lead to freezing and crashes of such UWP applications. Sometimes just disabling Internet security software will not fix the problem. We may need to disable it from Startup and stop all the related services and reboot to completely rule out that problem. Sadly that had no effect on the problem.
You can also try this. If this fixes the issue for you, you can contact the support of your security software to get further assistance from their side. If you are using a free antivirus, you can switch to another one.
2] Troubleshoot in Clean Boot State
So my next step was to perform a Clean Boot i.e. disable all non-Microsoft related startup items and reboot the system. This can rule out if any other application is interfering with the Windows 11/10 applications. I used the method described in this post on how to Manage Startup Items to do so. Sadly this didn’t help much. But when you’re troubleshooting App crashes this is an important step to try, even if Clean Boot did not help in this case.
Start your computer in a Clean Boot state and then open the Microsoft Store app that was crashing continuously. Start your computer in a Clean Boot state and then open the Microsoft Store app that was crashing continuously. Now, see if it crashes this time or not. If not, your next step is to identify the culprit third-party background application or service.
3] Run the system file checker
My next step was to run the system file checker to see if any operating system files had been corrupted. Sometimes users tend to use tweaking software or system file patches that could corrupt the core windows files, which can lead to stability issues on Windows.
The SFC scan reported that there weren’t any problems found. This was my case. However, the results can be different in your case. Therefore, I suggest you run the System File Checker and see if it finds any corrupted system image files on your system.
4] Check for Windows Update
I also checked for Windows Update but unfortunately, there was no update available at that time. I suggest you check for Windows Update manually and install the same if available. Windows Updates contain bug fixes and the latest security patches. Hence, installing the Windows Update can help.
5] Reinstall Microsoft Store
Reinstalling the Microsoft Store can also help fix Microsoft Store issues. I suggest you reinstall Microsoft Store by executing the following command in Windows PowerShell as an administrator and see if it helps.
Get-AppxPackage -allusers Microsoft.WindowsStore | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}
6] Reset Microsoft Store
I also tried resetting the Microsoft Store. You should also try this and see if it works. To do this, open Command Prompt as an administrator, type the following command and hit Enter.
wsreset
7] Fix Operating System 5 errors
So I researched the Internet and started reading all the Event logs and app crash dump files. I found something interesting, there are a few Operating System 5 errors; which means that there are some permission issues going on. Seems like the user had messed up the C drive permissions.
I can’t remember how many times I have advised users not to change the permission or any attributes of the root C folder; because that’s where all the boot-related files and all the system files are located.
If you want to change the permission, change a specific folder or file and not the whole C drive. Anyway, I searched online for the appropriate permissions required for the Windows application to run properly. Luckily I found a TechNet article about Managing Client Access to the Microsoft Store. In that article, it’s mentioned-
While configuring the access permissions on any of these resources, it is important to identify which of these resources grants access to all Metro style apps and ensure that the new effective permissions do not remove that access. When supplying the permissions in SDDL form, the security identifier (SID) for ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES is S-1-15-2-1.
So I went and gave “ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES” permission to the root C folder and rebooted the system.
Voilà no more crashes it worked just fine!
This is one of the most interesting and challenging troubleshooting cases I have done in quite some time. It feels really good when you do so successfully.
That’s it. I hope this helps.
How do I fix Microsoft Store glitching?
If you are experiencing problems with the Microsoft Store, like it is not working or closing immediately after opening it, you can try some fixes. To fix Microsoft Store issues, first, check your time and date settings. Make sure that the time and date are correct. If you are using a VPN or Proxy, disable it and check if this helps. You can also try clearing the Microsoft Store cache.
How to clear Microsoft Store cache?
To clear the Microsoft Store cache, you have to reset it. Resetting the Microsoft Store also clears the Microsoft Store cache. To do so, open the Command Prompt as an administrator, type the following command, and hit Enter.
wsreset
As you hit Enter, the above command resets Microsoft Store. AFter this, Microsoft Store will open automatically on your system.
More links to help you:
- Microsoft Store not opening or closes immediately after opening
- Windows Store Apps fail to start? Check these Registry & File Permissions
- Windows Store apps not working or opening.
Well, I hope you guys get some tips from this article. In case you encounter any problems, do let us know.
i have recent problem with metro apps in windows 8 rp, if i click the metro apps in start screen nothing happens, it wont open all metro apps..
do you have any ideas about it? thanks..
This is very useful knowing the SID of that account. However, I’m pretty sure that allowing all Modern UI / Metro apps full control of your entire C: drive is asking for trouble. I suggest rather using the system refresh option which should fix that kind of permission issue.
Good job! Thanks for sharing your troubleshooting steps in detail. I also will reinstall Windows 8 as a last resort. Sometimes it is quicker to do a reinstall but, it is more rewarding to successfully fix the Windows operating system.
Hello Jessica,
Yes I know since the permissions was already screwed up my primary goal was to get the Metro to work. But your rite it’s not a good idea to give full control to entire C drive.
Hello Jimsing59,
Thanks. Yes I know reinstalling Windows will fix it but where is the fun in find the problem alone and fixing it :)
clean install was my favorite route, but Win8 actually works better installing over the working Os. winsupersite has some articles about this.
i m also facing problem with some metro apps, when i launch these apps, start screen of that screen appears and then strat menu appers up back
OMG thanks :) love you man!
hi, i am having problems here, i already managed to use windows 8 on a very old netbook and also fix resolution issue and it worked well, but now i installed it in my friend’s netbook/laptop and i am facing this problem that i can’t fix even reinstalling.. problem is whenever i open any metro apps the system reboot and when it boot up it says PC RUN INTO A PROBLEM. please help me solve this thanks
Same with me despite this approach was the only successful which means that there is indeed somewhere a problem with access rights. After further checking it turned out that the only missing access rights were the “read & execute, list folder contents, read” on the Windows root folder “C:Windows” (aka %windir%) for the group “ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES”. Compared to the above approach this is completely uncritical as actually everybody else has these access rights to the Windows folder (just not the Metro apps initially). I hope that helps everybody who was almost there with Metro apps :-)
you got that right!
I hope you can hear me
I have read that there is some bios tweak or something like changing option in bios
and if you have or he 2 dvd drive turn 1 off while installing windows 8 :)
HI.
I id a mistake in changing the permission settings in my C drive which ended up in a mess getting no access to my c drive hopefully i got it reading some of the suggestions in some blogs. but my windows apps are not working as it was… i tried the technique above but still its not working. it opens and within seconds it gets minimized. please find me a solution to this i’m really stuck with this issue. please suggest a method other than a clean install of the OS.
need ur support….. :(
Can you please explain how you give root access to ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES
Give full permission to C drive
Sir,
I have problem with Windows 8.
before activation the metro apps work great.
After Activation
I checked that it is activated or not.
It was activated.
The problem that I am Facing now is that the METRO APPS like.. music, store, weather, people, message, etc open but it need to update new version.
Also it shows error that “You are not connected to internet. Please check the connection and try again.”
But internet is well working on browser an desktop.
What do I do If I don’t even have “ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES” ?
It might be a hidden folder. Enable the hidden files folders
ok im at the system 32 folder but how do i change the permissions? do i give it full control? i cant seem to be able to tick the full control box after i select edit
any help would be GREATLY APPRECIATED
You need to first need to take ownership http://forum.thewindowsclub.com/windows-tips-tutorials-articles/18379-take-ownership-full-control-permissions-files-folders-windows.html
Just read about this. My windows freezes on starting some apps, even after reinstalling windows. When I try adding ALL APP PACKAGES permissions I got a lot of errors.
Hi there. I am trying to give the C drive the ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES permission to the C drive and so I went to edit and then add as it wasn’t here yet. I then went to advanced and clicked find now. ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES was near the top and so I added it and then clicked Apply. It then warned me about changing permissions for the root directory and I went on to click yes. After this I got multiple errors that the system failed to enumerate objects in the container since access is denied. After this I then got a couple of errors saying the program could not access the file since it is being used by another process which is straight forward enough but I do not know how I would go around this as this is the root folder and there are bound to be things in use. I continued through these and then got some more enumeration errors and finally got to finally got to Unable To Save Permission Changes on OS (C:). Access is denied. So what/where did I go wrong and how should I be doing it. Thanks! :)
Amazing! I have had some different problems with my metro-apps. Some of them not syncing with one drive like they should. Some of them trying to start, but immediately shutting down. Not beeing able to attach files to my emails in the standars windows mail app. All this got fixed when I granted ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES full access to my %APPDATA% folder!!
how can you do that? It’s hard to understand.
how did you do this man?
Oh my goodness,I’m like computer illiterate and this saved me after almost 2 days of …urrrgh!!! Thank you!