All Modern apps fail to start after Windows 8.1 upgrade

Question

All Modern apps show an "X" in their bottom right corner.

Here is some additional information:

I Installed via the Windows Store today

I upgraded from Windows 8

Store won't open. It shows the splash screen, then a solid color screen. Nothing else happens. If I click anywhere, it goes back to the start screen.

I also can't open "Settings" found by moving the mouse in top right corner, Settings, Change PC Settings. Does same thing as store. Splash screen and nothing happens. Can click back to start screen.

For clarity, I can't get any other Modern app to run either. If I try to run any other Modern app (Calendar, Food and Drink, etc), I get the following error message:

This app can't open. There's a problem with <app name>. Contact your system administrator about repairing or reinstalling it.

If I run wsreset.exe I get the following error, it does the same thing I mentioned the store doing before. When I get back to the desktop, there is a popup that says:

ms-windows-store:PurgeCaches

The app didn't start.

Elsewhere, I've seen people suggesting that I run this command:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register $Env:SystemRoot\WinStore\AppxManifest.xml

When I do, I get this error:

Add-AppxPackage : Deployment failed with HRESULT: 0x80073CF6, Package could

not be registered.

error 0x8007064A: Cannot register the request because the following error was

encountered while initializing the windows.repositoryExtension extension: The

configuration data for this product is corrupt. Contact your support personnel.

.

NOTE: For additional information, look for [ActivityId]

d62b9028-cd30-0000-4e93-2bd630cdce01 in the Event Log or use the command line

Get-AppxLog -ActivityID d62b9028-cd30-0000-4e93-2bd630cdce01

At line:1 char:1

• Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register

$Env:SystemRoot\WinStore\AppxM ...

+ CategoryInfo          : WriteError: (C:\WINDOWS\WinStore\AppxManifest.xm

l:String) [Add-AppxPackage], IOException

+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : DeploymentError,Microsoft.Windows.Appx.PackageMa

nager.Commands.AddAppxPackageCommand

I have also run the apps.diagcab tool multiple times. It tells me my display adapter drivers might need to be updated (they don't) and and also tells met that it did a "Check for missing or corrupt files" which it says it detected every time. I have run
 it and rebooted multiple times. I'm not running any anti-virus other than Windows Defender. I had Stardock's ModernMix running in Window 8 before the upgrade. I thought it might be causing an issue so I uninstalled it. Issue still existed. I haven't done anything
 else to the system other than running some Windows Updates.

Any/all help is appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

At long last I found a fix. The information can be found in a post over in the Technet forums, but I'll copy it here for anybody else.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/c4147bcc-a430-43fe-b4e9-f999552568da/81-store-apps-wont-load?forum=w8itprogeneral

Quoted message below:

---

Guys, i've FINALLY found an answer to how to get this to work again, (courtesy of andy562)!  Andrés this may work for you too. 

The following finally fixed all issues for me (Store and all apps broken with black X, can't access PC Settings):

A.) Fixing the app store:

1. Open registry editor typing regedit.exe from a command line.
2. Browse to the registry key at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\software\microsoft\windows\currentversion\appmodel\repository\packages.
3. Right click on the “packages” key and bring up the “Permissions” tab.
4. Click the “Advanced” button located at the bottom right corner.
5. Check to see the account name that shows up as the “Owner” (this is the first line of text on the “advanced security settings” dialog for the “packages” key). It should say “SYSTEM”.  (For me this showed the built-in local Administrators group)
6. If it is any other account, click on the “Change” button next to it.
7. Type SYSTEM in the “select user” dialog. If “Multiple Names Found” window comes up, select the row for “SYSTEM”.
8. Click OK to the dialogs and close them all.
9. Run from admin command prompt:     Powershell -ExecutionPolicy Unrestricted Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register $Env:SystemRoot\WinStore\AppxManifest.xml

B.) Fixing all modern apps:

1. Run from admin PowerShell:

((Get-ChildItem "HKLM:SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Appx\AppxAllUserStore\InboxApplications") | Get-ItemProperty).Path | Add-AppxPackage -Register -DisableDevelopmentMode

    * When I ran this the black X persisted until after the next step and reboot.  But trying to start an app gives me a new message and a link to the store.

C.) Fixing 3rd party apps:

1. Delete the regkey:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Appx\AppxAllUserStore[UserSID]

          You can find your SID by going to an elevated command prompt and typing

                        wmic useraccount get name,sid

D.) Restart.  After a reboot the apps still showed the black X for a minute or so, but it soon cleared up on its own and all apps seemed to be working again.  I was also able to update the apps from the app store once signing in with a Microsoft account.  Finally, I am again able to get into PC Settings.

Answer 2

There is a very simple solution. just have a look.

http://webdevelopermeer.blogspot.de/2014/10/windows-81-apps-wont-open.html

Answer 3

I have the same issue as drowl87. We are trying to incorporate Windows Surface tablets into our domain. When 8.1 was first installed, all of the apps worked fine. As soon as I joined the tablet to our domain, they no longer work. They open the splash screen and then closed after a couple of seconds. It shows that the apps are open, but if you switch to them, they just sit there. I have gone through every step that I have found throughout the internet and technet forums, but nothing has any affect. Even after I take the tab back off the domain, the local account apps no longer work. As if joining the domain permanently breaks the apps.

Other question, why does every user, including the administrator account, have to "run as administrator" for everything? We are close to a mass deployment of tablets throughout our school district, but we cannot move forward until this is fixed.

Answer 4

Experiencing the same thing myself, upgrading from Windows 8 Enterprise to 8.1 Enterprise.

I am also noticing that the start screen will not go away when clicking on other installed programs, you have to hit escape to get back to your desktop.  Does this happen to anyone else?

Answer 5

I am experiencing the same exact thing. I'm the administrator of a small domain and I'm running the only computer at our office that runs Win 8/8.1. I had been running Windows 8 for about a year (upgraded the laptop from Win 7) without any significant issues. The main things I kept running into were permissions related, such as not being able to create/copy/move any files to the root folder of my C:\ drive. I upgraded to Win 8.1 ASAP with hopes that it might resolve some of my issues with 8.0, but of course that didn't happen. I just downloaded the Windows 8 ISO yesterday, formatted my laptop, installed 8.0 and all of the related updates, then just finished installing 8.1. Note: I had to go the 8.0 -> 8.1 route because my 8.0 product key would not work when I tried to install directly from the 8.1 ISO file.

With the local Admin account that I created, everything seems to work fine. All modern apps, full permissions to the root directory, etc. Once I was sure that things "could" run normally on 8.1, I joined my domain (running 2008 R2), added "Authenticated Users" to the Administrators group on the local PC, then rebooted and logged in with my Domain account - which has full administrative privileges across the entire domain. Now I have the X in the bottom right corner like everyone else, I get the error saying "This app can't open...Contact your system administrator..." and I don't have access to the root C:\ drive.

I hope someone can shed some more light on this ASAP because it's really annoying! Thanks!