How to uninstall some crap and change default mail?

Question

I recently got a hand-me-down windows 10 PC and there is a lot of junk on it. is cortana needed even after retirement, or can i uninstall it and Adobe Photoshop CC 2015.5 ended trial, Adobe creative cloud, and change mail app from outlook to Mail and get mail working again?

Answer 1

Hello

If this is a hand-me-down computer and you inherited all of the installed apps from previous user, you probably want to do a clean install and start over, it is the best practice. You can certainly uninstall those, but there can be "chronic issues" that still stay in the computer.

I will share the clean install instruction in case you are interested:

To perform a clean installation of Windows 10 using the Windows Media Creation Tool. You do need to get access to another computer so you can download the Windows installation files into a flash drive, then use the flash drive to help your computer. Hopefully you have a spare computer, or you can have friend or family help you.

The following steps should be done on a working Windows computer:

Download the Windows Media Creation Tool from Microsoft's official website. https://www.microsoft.com/software-download/windows10

Run the tool and select "Create installation media for another PC."

Choose your language, edition, and architecture (32 or 64-bit) and select "Next."

Choose "USB flash drive" as the media to use for the installation and select "Next."

Connect a USB flash drive with at least 8 GB of free space to your computer.

Select the USB flash drive you want to use, and then select "Next."

The tool will then download the required files and create the installation media.

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Now these steps will  be done on your problematic computer:

Go to the computer's BIOS boot menu to have it boot from the USB drive.

Follow the on-screen instructions to install Windows 10, making sure to choose "Custom install" and select the option to delete all existing partitions.

Once the installation is complete, you'll have a clean installation of Windows 10 on your computer.

Answer 2

You can uninstall unwanted applications on your Windows 10 PC, including Cortana and Adobe products. Here’s how:

Uninstalling Applications:

1. Cortana: While Cortana has been retired, you can uninstall it using the following PowerShell command:

      Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.Windows.Cortana | Remove-AppxPackage
   

2. Adobe Photoshop CC 2015.5 and Adobe Creative Cloud: You can uninstall these applications through the Start menu or from Settings:
   • From Start Menu: Locate the application, right-click it, and select Uninstall.
   • From Settings: Go to Settings > Apps, find the application in the list, select it, and click Uninstall.

Changing Default Mail App:

To change the default mail app from Outlook to the Mail app:

1. Go to Settings > Apps > Default apps.
2. Under Email, select the Mail app to set it as the default.

After changing the default mail app, ensure that it is set up correctly to start receiving emails again.

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References:

• Control installing and using new Outlook
• Find, install, and uninstall applications from the Microsoft Store