[German]A German blog reader contacted me a day ago with a problem he was facing. After upgrading from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10, both the Microsoft Store and the apps on Windows 10 disappeared. The cause is probably Roaming Profiles that were used there. Here is some information about it.
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A user observation
A roaming profile can always be good for many a nasty surprise. Blog reader Michael T. contacted me by mail the days and reported a special observation (thanks for that). Michael wrote:
Hello…
I found another great feature.
A user had a win8.1 PC. This was exchanged for a new model with win 10 (current build).
The user uses a roaming profile (V6).
After logging on to the client, I set him all the settings as in v4 and also transferred all the data. Everything worked. Logon and logoff works without temp profile or similar.
Only all Windows Apps are gone. (computer / photo)…) And the store as well.
When I log in with a local profile the apps and store are there.
I deleted his profile on the domain controller (dc), cleaned the registry (profile list) and had a brand new profile created.
Still no store or apps..
Every domain user with roaming profile I log on has the same error… only with local profiles the error does not occur….
Is this known and are there any tips on this?
I was not aware of anything, but at the keyword 'roaming profiles' immediately shot through my head 'this is always trouble and should be avoided'. But I am not in this area on the road, there is a lack of practical experience.
The explanation
I had sent Michael this forum post from the MSCE board. There Start Menu entries were missing in connection with Roaming Profiles. And Microsoft published this article about issues with not completely synchronized roaming profiles. However, neither of these really applies to the above case.
I then later found something similar in this forum post, where there were also problems with apps. The explanation may be of interest. In the meantime Michael contacted me again, because he also found an explanation in a forum. He wrote me about it:
Thank you for the feedback.
In the 1st link all installed programs are missing. That is not the case. All installed programs like Office 2016, Nitro PDF or other stuff can be found in the start menu. Only all apps from the store including store have disappeared.
Had I already supposed that the case does not apply. But Michael has found something else himself, which explains this behavior. He wrote me about it:
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I just found a link [link is not available to me] on which the problem is described. There it says roughly that during the setup all apps are stored once by MS in appdata local.
And with the roaming profile these are then missing.
Sounds plausible and the cache is also empty, no entries to find. Ergo, Windows cannot display apps that do not exist for the profile. A subsequent installation from the store fails, since this is present in the system folders and can not be easily overwritten…
Remedy would be a reinstallation or refresh.
Because I'm fed up with the combination of win10 + roaming profiles, I will gradually move the users to local profiles. Each user has his own network drive where he can save data. If you do not adhere to it and after a PC swap data is lost – so it is then called learning by doing!
The explanation sounds logical – thanks to Michael for the addendum. So it also goes away from the Roaming Profiles in Windows 10. I put the case here in the blog, in case someone also runs into this trap.
