Remove 'Get Started' from start menu recommended section

Question

I am on the IT team at a school where we are in the process of setting up a domain network with an active directory server running server 2016 and several hundred laptops and desktops, mostly running Windows 11 Pro (any that are still on Windows 10 will be replaced soon). I am trying to implement a series of group polices for our student computers that will limit their user experience to only using the apps that they need to use in the classrooms, and have managed to do this with one notable exception. The 'Get Started' app cannot be removed using the traditional Powershell uninstall command since it is a system app, and Microsoft pins it to the recommended section of the star menu for all users when the first logon. We do not want students seeing or using this app for privacy reasons. Also, students don't have designated computers and thus will log on to a different machine each day, meaning that from the user perspective it wouldn't be practical to link their Microsoft info on a specific machine anyway.

My question is this: how would I go about preventing or removing 'Get Started' from showing on start menu recommended? While it would be nice to fully remove it, that doesn't seem to really be possible based on what I've researched so far, but if I could at least make it so it isn't right in the user's face on every new machine they log in to that would be sufficient. I've tried clearing a user's jump lists in AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Recent\AutomaticDestinations and CustomDestinations but this doesn't help.

Answer 1

Hello,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community forum.

Based on the description, I understand your question is related to remove 'Get Started' from start menu recommended section.

Yes, it may be hard to preventing or removing 'Get Started' from showing on start menu recommended instead of fully delete it.

Try open Settings/ Personalization/Start.

Under the “Layout” section, select “More pins”

It can limit the number of recommendations and show more pinned apps.

Turn off the following toggle switches:

Show recently added apps

Show most used apps

Show recently opened items in Start, Jump Lists, and File Explorer

Then check the result.

Have a nice day. 

Best Regards,

Molly

Answer 2

Thanks for your answer to this, while it wasn't quite what I was looking for I was able to figure out a solution based on your response.

Because we are working with several hundred devices on our network, I was looking for a solution that could be implemented via Group Policy. I did some testing with the settings you mentioned and found that by simply disabling 'Show recently added apps' in the Settings app \ Personalization \ Start the 'Get Started' app would no longer appear in the start menu recommended section.

I then both the device and user policies in Administrative Templates \ Start Menu and Taskbar \ "Remove 'recently added' list from the start menu" and while this did disable the 'Show recently added apps' setting in the settings app it for some reason did not remove the 'Get Started' app from recommended.

I then implemented a registry edit via group policy (I applied it to users but it could be applied to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE):

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer

"HideRecentlyAddedApps"=dword:00000001

This registry entry disabled the 'Show recently added apps' setting just like the group policy but it also successfully removed 'Get Started' from the recommended section of the start menu.

Thanks again for you help with this!

Answer 3

Hello,

You're welcome! Thanks for sharing your findings here, this will help others with the same issue.

Best regards,

Molly

Answer 4

has anything changed on this issue? I tried these steps and "Getting Started" still shows for some reason.

Answer 5

Hello,

You may want to look into configuring the Start Menu layout. There were changes with Windows 11 in this area.

Customize the Windows 11 Start menu | Microsoft Learn

Have you looked at the shell get-startapps configuration used prior to Windows 11? Not sure what OS version you are using