Surprisingly, the Bing News application installed on Windows 11 is a way to bypass the internet browsing restrictions on a device with blocking and whitelist policies applied in Intune.
To address this, I wanted to apply the new “Device configuration profile” added in Intune to uninstall default built-in (APPX) applications. However, to my surprise, I found that this policy only applies during a device wipe, fresh start, etc. It does not remove applications once the device is already installed and in use.
To achieve this, I created a remediation script that uninstalls native APPX applications once they are detected.
1. Command that give us the name of the current appx apps in the computer:
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | Format-List -Property Name* -Allusers requires local admin rights.2. Array with the name of the apps to remove:
Example:
$PackagesToUninstall = @(
"Microsoft.BingNews""Microsoft.BingSearch"
)
$PackagesToUninstall = @(
"Microsoft.BingNews"
"Microsoft.BingSearch"
)
$InstalledPackages = Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | Where {($PackagesToUninstall -contains $_.Name)}
if ($InstalledPackages = $null){
Exit 0
}else{
Exit 1603
}$PackagesToUninstall= @(
"Microsoft.BingNews"
"Microsoft.BingSearch"
)
$InstalledPackages = Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | Where {($PackagesToUninstall -contains $_.Name)}
$ProvisionedPackages = Get-AppxProvisionedPackage -Online | Where {($PackagesToUninstall -contains $_.DisplayName)}
ForEach ($PPackage in $ProvisionedPackages) {
Write-Host -Object "Removing the provisioned package: [$($PPackage.DisplayName)]..."
Try {
$Null = Remove-AppxProvisionedPackage -PackageName $PPackage.PackageName -Online -ErrorAction Stop
Write-Host -Object "Successfully packaged removed: [$($PPackage.DisplayName)]"
}
Catch {Write-Warning -Message "Failed the package: [$($PPackage.DisplayName)]"}
}
ForEach ($AppPackage in $InstalledPackages) {
Write-Host -Object "Removing Appx package: [$($AppPackage.Name)]..."
Try {
$Null = Remove-AppPackage -Package $AppPackage.PackageFullName -AllUsers -ErrorAction Stop
Write-Host -Object "Successfully Appx package removed: [$($AppPackage.Name)]"
}
Catch {Write-Warning -Message "Failed the Appx package: [$($AppPackage.Name)]"}
}
