Remove 'Look For An App In The Store'

Pertaining to Windows 10, a native feature named Microsoft Store app, allows you to download apps for your computer, such as those relative to movies & TV, Games, music, email etc- that're available for both free and paid releases. The option to choose an app, Is available via the right-click context menu but If you'd prefer to not have It accessible as such, In this tutorial, I will show you how to remove 'Look for an app In the Store' from the right-click menu.


Before I make a start, here's what I'm referring to. Firstly, I've right-clicked my file named Windows 10 Tips and selected Open as shown below.

The Look for an app In the Store Is now available, whereby It will launch the Store app, and allow to select & Install a given app to open the file.

Whilst this serves Its purpose well for Intentional reasons, If you have multiple users sharing your computer, they can perform this action on just about any file type, thus mess up your current configuration. As a result, I will demonstrate how to securely remove the 'Look for an app In the Store' from the right-click menu.

To achieve this, I will use the good old Group Policy Editor. Do note, that the GPE Is only available In Windows 10 Pro, Education and Enterprise editions. If you're running either of these, then this tutorial Is for you. So without further delay, let's get this started.

Step One:

To access the Group Policy Editor, open the Run menu, enter gpedit.msc and hit OK as shown below.

Step Two:

The Group Policy Editor will now open, so navigate to the following directory.

Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Internet Communication Management > Internet Communication settings

Make sure the Internet Communication settings folder Is selected, and on the right pane, double-click Turn off access to the Store.

Step Three:

To the left of the window, click the Enabled radio button and then hit OK to finalize the process. The Look for an app In the Store, has been removed from the right-click context menu. We'll check It out In the next step.

Last Step:

I've now right-clicked my file named Windows 10 Tips and as you can see, the Look for an app In the Store has been completely removed. Perfect result!

Final Thoughts:

Do note, that this obviously doesn't prevent other means of accessing and Installing apps from the Microsoft Store. The good thing about this Implementation, Is that not too many users are aware that It exists In the Group Policy Editor, hence that's what makes It so effective. If you want to reverse the change, refer to Step Three above, select the Not Configured radio button and hit OK.