I recently had to deal with a simple but curious problem — one of those where once you’ve solved it you think: “I really need to remember this one for the future!” Since it’s something that can be useful to everyone in everyday life, I thought I’d share it briefly.

The Problem

I was trying to update a Universal App — a package-based application built with Visual Studio and also published on the Store. I had previously installed it locally on the development PC, then removed it. After this action it had become impossible to run the development version locally — with abnormal errors such as error 1104 from Visual Studio, indicating that the delivery path could not be accessed. Even from Microsoft Store the published version had become impossible to install.

The Cause

For unclear reasons, the application showed as installed under a different user account from mine, from which it had become impossible to remove — perhaps it was some test done in the past with an account no longer available. Visual Studio and Microsoft Store had no way to remove it correctly.

The Solution: PowerShell with Administrative Rights

The quickest solution was to force removal via PowerShell in an administrative console. The following commands allow you to remove the package for all users on the system.

Step-by-Step Procedure

1. Open a PowerShell console with administrative rights
2. Find the package name to remove in one of these ways:
   • From the error message received
   • From the folder %USERPROFILE%AppDataLocalPackages — each folder name corresponds to a package
   • Via the PowerShell command: Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers
3. Once you’ve identified the name, remove the package:

Get-AppxPackage -Name "[PACKAGENAME]" -AllUsers | Remove-AppxPackage -AllUsers

Replace [PACKAGENAME] with the exact package name found in the previous step. The command will remove the package for all users on the system, resolving the block in both Visual Studio and the Store.