Microsoft has added a setting to Windows 10 that will let users restrict new software installation to only those apps hosted in the Windows Store. The option debuted in the latest version of Windows 10 Insider, the preview program which gives participants an early peek at the next feature upgrade as Microsoft builds it. That version, labeled 15042, was released Friday.
With the setting at its most stringent, Windows 10 will block the installation of Win32 software -- the traditional legacy applications that continue to make up the vast bulk of the Windows ecosystem -- and allow users to install only apps from the Windows Store, Microsoft's marketplace. Other settings allow software installation from any source, or, while allowing that, put a preference on those from the Windows Store.
Unless Microsoft removes them, the options will appear in the next Windows 10 feature upgrade, dubbed "Creators Update," which is to launch in March or April.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 3, Insightful) by digitalaudiorock on Thursday March 02 2017, @02:38PM
After I upgraded from 8 to 10 the various services related to the Windows Store (which you CANNOT truly disable without the registry hack below) were reading my entire drive relentlessly, probably snooping as to what software I had installed. I was able to disable them with the registry entries referenced here:
http://www.ghacks.net/2015/05/11/what-is-wsappx-and-why-is-causing-high-cpu-load/ [ghacks.net]
In the following registry keys:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\AppXSVC
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ClipSVC
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\WSService
Change the "Start" REG_DWORD value from:
0x00000003 (3)
to
0x00000004 (4)
After a reboot the services were disabled and my machine was actually quiet unless...you know...I was actually doing something. F*** MS and their "Store".