Removing stray and left-behind icons/tiles from the Windows 10 Start Menu

August 31, 2019
I have received a fair few messages over the last couple of days, which I can't find, not sure why. Maybe the senders deleted them?
However, the basic question all asked, is that they cannot remove the icons/tiles despite following the instructions in this video (for an "old" version of Windows 10)
To answer these queries, I fired up a copy of Windows 10 (I'm using Linux as a development platform more and more these days), to see if I could help.
The best answer I have come up with is as follows:
Get the location of the stray icon/tile
Right click and select Properties or "Open File Location"
Copy the path from the relevant section; the navigation bar in File Explorer or Target if accessing using Properties.
Startup PowerShell as Administrator
Navigate to the location specified by the path. I had paste the path into notepad and navigate using cd [folder] for each folder down the tree as PowerShell kept telling me the path doesn't exist.
(EG: (at each command prompt - angle brackets are not allowed in this comment box so imagine the PowerShell prompt before each command)

cd ProgramData

cd Windows

cd "Start Menu" Programs

cd "Name of Application" or NameOfApplication

When you reach the relevant folder, issue the command Remove-Item application_name.ext -WhatIf to check if the removal will go as "planned"
application_name.ext is the application name plus the extension (eg: my_application.exe)
eg:
Remove-Item application_name.extension -WhatIf

The whatif is important to make sure it's what you want.
If it all looks good, issue the command:

Remove-Item application-name.ext -Confirm

This asks you if you are sure. If you are, confirm it and the icon/tile should be gone.
This worked with all the test icons/tiles I tried it on.
I can't guarantee it will work on every icon/tile. Wish I could, but this is Windows. Tiles and icons can "hide" in the most unlikely places.
If anyone comes up with a "better" solution perhaps they could post a comment below or even better, create their own video about how to do it. :D That would be a really good thing to do. :D
In the meantime, best wishes to you all!

свернуть