Removing unnecessary application and services from PAW

Jenny Feng 706 Reputation points
2020-02-25T02:49:28.01+00:00

I'm building a privileged Access workstation PAW for AD administration, and looking a list of application and services to remove.

Basically, we want to have a minimal OS install, with only the necessary services to run the RSAT, while keeping the machine secure, for sure, windows defender and firewall for example.

I have the following list of applications and services :

$Apppackages = "3d","camera","communi","bing","zune","people","phone","photo","solit",
"xbox","sway","onenote","office","store","skype","map","soundrecorder",
"map","WindowsAlarms","GetStarted"

$Services = "BluetoothUserService", "BthAvctpSvc","diagtrack", "diagsvc", "Lotus Notes Diagnostics",
"MapsBroker","fhsvc","TrkWks","iphlpsvc","lmhosts","irmon","SharedAccess","PcaSvc","Spooler","WpcMonSvc","RemoteRegistry",
"seclogon","lmhosts","WerSvc","StiSvc","FrameServer","wisvc","WSearch","AxInstSV","DmEnrollmentSvc",
"DevicesFlowUserSvc_","PrintWorkflowUserSvc_","ssh-agent","WiaRpc","TapiSrv","PushToInstall"

Uninstall Onedrive

Is it safe to remove all these services ? are there any additional services and apps that should be removed ?

Windows 10 Setup
Windows 10 Setup
Windows 10: A Microsoft operating system that runs on personal computers and tablets.Setup: The procedures involved in preparing a software program or application to operate within a computer or mobile device.
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Accepted answer
  1. Joy qiao 876 Reputation points
    2020-02-25T09:08:07.633+00:00

    Hi,

    If you want to uninstall store application, we could run the following command line as administrator in PowerShell.

    Get-AppxPackage -allusers packagename | Remove-AppxPackage

    If you not know the exact name of appxpackage, we could use the following command to query.

    Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers

    But for services, I would not recommend to uninstall or disabled them, as they would affect system usage such as BthAvctpSvc which is used to protect user files from accidental loss by copying them to a backup location. Yet for MapsBroker and TrkWks, which are not used for general system usage, could be deleted without an issue.

    As there is not a services list ranking by security level released by Microsoft, so it would be difficult to say which should be removed.

    Bests,


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