Can’t uninstall or update your Microsoft Store apps? Weird Windows 10 bug has just been fixed, thankfully

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• Microsoft Store apps can’t be updated or uninstalled due to a bug
• Thankfully Microsoft has now fixed the problem related to WinAppSDK
• The cure is in a Windows 10 optional update, so you may want to wait

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Some Windows 10 users have been experiencing an odd bug with the operating system having problems running updates for apps from the Microsoft Store – but this issue has now been sorted.

Neowin reports that Windows 10 22H2 had a bug which meant that in some cases, apps from the Microsoft Store couldn’t be updated – or uninstalled, either – but a resolution for this has now been applied (as of November 21).

Microsoft explains that this wasn’t an issue with Windows 10 itself, but rather with the latest version of WinAppSDK. Those who received version 1.6.2, on November 12, or later – which may have been installed by an app that requires WinAppSDK, as it’ll pull down the latest version – may have been hit by the bug.

Those who’ve seen the issue will have noticed that updates fail with an unhelpful error message (‘Something happened on our end’) displayed in the downloads panel of the Microsoft Store.

Microsoft clarified that “this issue is not caused by a Windows security or preview monthly update,” while informing users that the fix for this is in the new Windows 10 update, KB5046714, which has just been released.

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Analysis: Something happened… or not

Note that KB5046714 is an optional update for Windows 10, so it could have some bugs itself. If you’re worried about installing a preview release, you can always wait for the full version of the patch, which will be here next month (on December 10, to be precise).

Still, in this case, if you’re hit by the Microsoft Store bug and you aren’t getting any updates for your software from the store, grabbing the optional patch may be worth the risk (find it under Windows Updates, as ever).

Elsewhere, KB5046714 provides some other fixes for issues including a bug where dragging and dropping a file from a cloud provider’s folder (like OneDrive) may result in that file being moved over, rather than copied as it should be by default. Also, there’s an important solution for a problem where Windows 10 fails to activate after the PC’s motherboard has been replaced.

While you’re fixing bugs, Microsoft, you might want to do a bit of tweaking to that error message as well: ‘Something happened on our end’ is not very useful, and indeed nonsensical, really. The problem here being an update failing to apply, so in fact, the correct message should be ‘Something didn’t happen on our end,’ namely the app patch that should’ve gone through. Or ‘Nothing happened on our end,’ perhaps?

How about a simple rewording to ‘Something went wrong on our end’ – that fits better, right, Microsoft? That’s this month’s visit to ‘Pedantry Corner’ over, stay tuned for December’s ever-so-thrilling nitpicking observation.

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