Unpin Windows Store app from Taskbar with PowerShell logon script

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Michael Pietroforte

Michael Pietroforte is the founder and editor in chief of 4sysops. He has more than 35 years of experience in IT management and system administration.

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In the first post of this series, I outlined why you probably don’t want your users to install apps from the Windows Store. If you just disable the Windows Store via Group Policy, many users will click the Store app anyway, which is now right in front of their nose on the Taskbar.

Windows Store app pinned to Taskbar

The following error message will probably trigger many help desk calls:

“Contact your system administrator” message

If you don’t want to be contacted for more information, you must unpin the Store icon from the Taskbar. Doing so isn’t as easy as it should be, but PowerShell is powerful enough to accomplish this daunting task. Please note that “programmatically changing the Taskbar pins is not supported or encouraged by Microsoft.”

Nevertheless, MVP Jan Egil Ring posted a PowerShell module on TechNet that allows you to pin and unpin applications from the Taskbar and Start Menu. I used Jan’s function Set-PinnedApplication in the module for the following PowerShell script. The last seven lines seven lines are mine.

Remove Windows Store app from Taskbar

function Set-PinnedApplication 
{ 
<#   
  AUTHOR of function Set-PinnedApplication: Jan Egil Ring, Crayon
  More info: http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/b66434f1-4b3f-4a94-8dc3-e406eb30b750
#>  
       [CmdletBinding()] 
       param( 
      [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][string]$Action,  
      [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][string]$FilePath 
       ) 
       if(-not (test-path $FilePath)) {  
           throw "FilePath does not exist."   
    } 
    
       function InvokeVerb { 
           param([string]$FilePath,$verb) 
        $verb = $verb.Replace("&","") 
        $path= split-path $FilePath 
        $shell=new-object -com "Shell.Application"  
        $folder=$shell.Namespace($path)    
        $item = $folder.Parsename((split-path $FilePath -leaf)) 
        $itemVerb = $item.Verbs() | ? {$_.Name.Replace("&","") -eq $verb} 
        if($itemVerb -eq $null){ 
            throw "Verb $verb not found."             
        } else { 
            $itemVerb.DoIt() 
        } 
            
       } 
    function GetVerb { 
        param([int]$verbId) 
        try { 
            $t = [type]"CosmosKey.Util.MuiHelper" 
        } catch { 
            $def = [Text.StringBuilder]"" 
            [void]$def.AppendLine('[DllImport("user32.dll")]') 
            [void]$def.AppendLine('public static extern int LoadString(IntPtr h,uint id, System.Text.StringBuilder sb,int maxBuffer);') 
            [void]$def.AppendLine('[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]') 
            [void]$def.AppendLine('public static extern IntPtr LoadLibrary(string s);') 
            add-type -MemberDefinition $def.ToString() -name MuiHelper -namespace CosmosKey.Util             
        } 
        if($global:CosmosKey_Utils_MuiHelper_Shell32 -eq $null){         
            $global:CosmosKey_Utils_MuiHelper_Shell32 = [CosmosKey.Util.MuiHelper]::LoadLibrary("shell32.dll") 
        } 
        $maxVerbLength=255 
        $verbBuilder = new-object Text.StringBuilder "",$maxVerbLength 
        [void][CosmosKey.Util.MuiHelper]::LoadString($CosmosKey_Utils_MuiHelper_Shell32,$verbId,$verbBuilder,$maxVerbLength) 
        return $verbBuilder.ToString() 
    } 
 
    $verbs = @{  
        "PintoStartMenu"=5381 
        "UnpinfromStartMenu"=5382 
        "PintoTaskbar"=5386 
        "UnpinfromTaskbar"=5387 
    } 
        
    if($verbs.$Action -eq $null){ 
           Throw "Action $action not supported`nSupported actions are:`n`tPintoStartMenu`n`tUnpinfromStartMenu`n`tPintoTaskbar`n`tUnpinfromTaskbar" 
    } 
    InvokeVerb -FilePath $FilePath -Verb $(GetVerb -VerbId $verbs.$action) 
}

<# Michael's unorthodox code #>

$WshShell = New-Object -comObject WScript.Shell
$Shortcut = $WshShell.CreateShortcut("$env:USERPROFILE\Store.lnk")
$Shortcut.TargetPath = "C:\Windows\WinStore\WinStore.htm"
$Shortcut.Save()
Set-PinnedApplication -Action PintoTaskbar -FilePath "$env:USERPROFILE\Store.lnk"
Set-PinnedApplication -Action UnPinFromTaskbar -FilePath "$env:USERPROFILE\Store.lnk"
Remove-Item $env:USERPROFILE\Store.lnk

The Set-PinnedApplication function takes shortcuts as input, but for some reason the function doesn’t accept the original Windows Store link (C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Windows Store.lnk). Other Modern app shortcuts in this folder, such as the Camera.lnk, work. That is why the script first creates a new shortcut with the same target path, which I save in the user’s profile. I then pin this link to the Taskbar and delete it again in the next line. This will also remove the original Store link from the Taskbar. The last line deletes the shortcut from the user’s profile.

Launch PowerShell script at user logon

You can’t run this PowerShell script as a normal logon script (Windows Settings > Scripts) because these logon scripts run right after the user logs on and before the user’s desktop is available. This is why you have to use the Group Policy setting “Run these programs at user logon” in User Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Logon.

Run these programs at user logon

This Group Policy setting for logon scripts doesn't allow you to run PowerShell scripts directly. Thus, you have to launch the script through the powershell command:

powershell \\win2012r2\scripts\store.ps1

In my example, the PowerShell scripts is stored on the network share “scripts” on the server “win2012r2.”

Items to run at logon

Notice that your users will momentarily see a PowerShell command window after they logged in. I will show you in an upcoming post how to deal with such popup windows in logon scripts. I know that the entire procedure is a bit unorthodox, but it works. If you know of a better way, feel free to share it in the comment section below.

Conclusion

If you don’t want your users to install apps from the Windows Store, you have to do three things: disable the Windows Store, remove the Windows Store from the Start Screen, and unpin the Store icon from the Taskbar. I am hoping that Windows 9 will have a Group Policy setting that allows you to do this for your entire network with just one click. Another option exists which allows you to configure the pinned apps on the Taskbar with Group Policy. I will discuss this solution another post. Stay tuned!