What If You’re Unable to Access Apps & Features on Windows 10?

What's Apps & Features on Windows 10?

App & Features is an app management program in Windows 10 settings. Once launched, this program provides a list of all apps that are installed on the OS allowing users to move, modify, or uninstall, which is similar to Add/Remove software on Control Panel. To run this program, just follow “Start Menu > Windows Settings > Apps > Apps & Features”.

How to fix “Unable to access apps & features” on Windows 10?

People sometimes complain that they’re unable to access Apps & Features on Windows 10, saying that when they click on the Apps & Features tab, nothing happens except the tab becomes highlighted in bold while everything else seems to be working properly. Then, how to fix it if you can’t open apps & features in Windows 10? Here, 4 effective ways are listed so that you can refer to.

Method 1. Log into safe mode

Most of them claim that the issue disappears once the computer is rebooted in a safe mode. Then, how to enter a safe mode? Follow the step-by-step guide to get it done.

1. Hit the Power button and press Shift before the Windows logo appears.

2. Select Restart > Troubleshoot.

3. Hit Advanced Options and select Startup Settings.

4. Select Restart.

5. Then, Windows 10 says that you can restart to change Windows options, and “Enable Safe Mode” is included.

6. After Windows 10 restarts, you can choose which boot option to enable. To enter Safe Mode, you have 3 different options:

1) Standard Safe Mode – hit 4 or F4 on the keyboard.

2) Safe Mode with Networking – hit 5 or F5.

3) Safe Mode with Command Prompt – hit either 6 or F6.

After that, you can log into Window 10 Safe Mode with a user account along with administrator permissions. Next, make the changes you want.

Method 2. Try clean boot

It’s possible that it’s those non-Microsoft applications running in the background that interferes with Apps & Features that make the program unable to be accessed. To fix it, try disabling all those apps and restart the system.

1. In the Search box on the lower left of the desktop, type “system configuration” and hit the “ENTER” key.

2. Go to Services, tick “Hide all Microsoft services”, hit “Disable all”.

3. Go to Task Manager > Startup, select those non-Microsoft applications and hit “Disable”.

4. Once done, quit Task Manager.

5. Hit “OK” in the System Configuration dialogue box.

6. Reboot your PC.

Method 3. Run an elevated PowerShell

Some users also claim that the issue of “unable to access Apps & Features setting” can be fixed with a row of commands for repairment in PowerShell? Then, what’s the code? Read on and you’ll find the answer.

1. Press “Ctrl + Shift + Esc” to launch Task Manager.

2. Select "File" on the top right and click on “Run New Task”.

3. Ensure the option “Create this task with administrative privileges" is checked.

4. Type “powershell” and click on “OK” to launch PowerShell.

5. Once opened, type the command as follows and hit the ENTER key.

Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers |Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\\AppXManifest.xml”}

6. Exit PowerShell and check whether the issue is resolved.

Method 4. Run a scan via Command Prompt

If you’re enable to access Apps & Features on Windows 10, the last way you can try is to scan your entire PC for errors. Then, Command Prompt is a good option for it.

1. Type “cmd” in the search box on the lower left of your PC, locate Command Prompt, and select “Run as Administrator”.

2. Type “sfc/scannow” and hit “ENTER”.

Wait several seconds before the scan gets completed and check whether there’re any system errors existing.

Alternative way to move apps from one drive to another

If you’re eager to transfer Apps from one drive to another using App & Features but it can be opened, there’s another better alternative – AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional, a powerful and multifunctional disk manager – to help you get it done with much more ease. By using this AOMEI product, you can move a single or bulk of apps from one drive to another to free up storage space or for other purposes in only a few clicks.

Note: When using App & Features to move apps, the “Move” button will be greyed out if the app isn't from Microsoft Store. However, with the AOMEI software, you don’t need to worry about this issue as it’s able to transfer apps from different sources.

Try the demo to transfer apps between drives more easily.

Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. Then right-click the drive you need to move the applications and choose "APP Mover".

Step 2. Select the drive where the apps you want to move are and click on “Next”.

Step 3. Tick the apps you want to transfer and preset a destination drive. Then, click on “Move”.

Step 4. Hit the “OK” button when prompted with the warning. After that, the file transfer will start.

Step 5. After the file transfer is 100% completed, click on “Finish” and go to the destination drive to check if the apps are there.

Conclusion

What if unable to access Apps & Features on Windows 10 when you want to delete or move apps from one drive to another? After going through the tutorial, I believe it’s no longer a problem. Also, a wonderful disk management utility – AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional – is introduced to help move apps between drives as an alternative to App & Features. More than moving apps, you can also use it to clone hard drives and partitions, schedule defrag, 4K align your SSD, delete large files, etc. If you want to move apps on Servers, you can try the Server edition.