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In a fresh development, if you planned to free up space on Windows 11 by uninstalling a few apps, you should know that it doesn’t always work, especially if you installed those apps via the Microsoft Store.

The report highlights that microsoft created this format as a clean way to install apps, keep those apps patch, and avoid registry bloat and leftover files when they’re eventually uninstalled. When you download and install apps from the Microsoft Store, they come in a special format called MSIX.

As part of the ongoing story, instead, Windows effectively makes it invisible to you even while keeping it on disk. However, Microsoft does some funky magic behind the scenes when installing and uninstalling MSIX packages—sometimes, uninstalling an app doesn’t actually “uninstall” it in the traditional sense.

According to the latest update, instead, an app can be “staged” (downloaded and placed on disk), “registered” (associated with the user and made visible), “deregistered” (disassociated with the user and made invisible), and “destaged” (removed from disk). That’s because the MSIX system design doesn’t recognize “install” and “uninstall” actions as we’ve come to know them.

In a fresh development, it’s all explained in a recent Inside MSIX blog post written by Howard Kapustein, Principal Applications Engineer at Microsoft:.

As part of the ongoing story, just as [this blog post] explained that Install is not truly an installation operation in MSIX, Remove is similarly not an uninstall operation.

The report highlights that this can be surprising — sometimes even alarming — to developers coming from traditional installer technologies such as MSI, where uninstalling programs typically implies:.

In a fresh development, in MSIX, that model simply does not exist.

Industry observers note that from the user’s perspective, the application is gone.

Industry observers note that from the operating system’s perspective, however, the package may still be present on disk — available for, and possibly in use by, other users.

As part of the ongoing story, that distinction is crucial to understanding why Remove is not the same thing as Uninstall.

According to the latest update, deletion of the package payload is conditional. Remove always unwinds registrations.

In a fresh development, it may be kept around for various reasons, just made invisible to you. It’ll appear as if it’s been removed, but it’s quietly existing on disk—and thus no regained storage space. When you uninstall an MSIX app, it’s guaranteed to be deregistered but not guaranteed to be destaged.

Industry observers note that to learn more, see our comparison of Windows 11 Home and Pro. If you want to upgrade, snag it for cheap in the PCWorld Applications Store: now just $59 instead of $99. By the way: If you’re using Windows 11 Home, you’re missing out on the many benefits of Windows 11 Pro.

As part of the ongoing story, this article originally appeared on our sister publication PC för Alla and was translated and localized from Swedish.

The report highlights that he has previously worked with Macworld, but today mainly writes for our sister sites PC för Alla and M3. Mikael has a firm grasp on which gadgets are dropped, and what is happening with the streaming services and the most recent AI tools. Mikael writes news across all our consumer tech categories.

As part of the ongoing story, he has been writing on almost all IT topics for around 25 years, covering everything from news to reviews and buying guides. Hans-Christian Dirscherl began his IT life with Autoexec.bat and config.sys, Turbo-Pascal and C, Sinix and Wordperfect.