Recovering winget and Windows Terminal on a Windows 11 Box Where the Microsoft Store Won't Open
Setting up a Windows 11 dev machine, we got blocked before we even started. The Microsoft Store refused to open, and the wingetcommand didn’t exist. Installing Windows Terminal is easy with either the Store or winget — and we had neither.
This is the record of how we recovered winget and Windows Terminal without ever touching the Microsoft Store. The key move is installing App Installer by hand. The real error messages we hit along the way, and the spots that genuinely confused us, are included too.
3
Files You Must Install
0
Times the Store Was Opened
v1.12.470
winget Version After Recovery
2
Core Terminal Tools Installed
The Symptom: No Store, No winget
At first we assumed it was just a corrupted Store cache, so we ran wsreset.exe from the Run dialog. The message that came back said otherwise.
wsreset.exe # Result: "You'll need a new app to open this link"
When you see that message, the problem is closer to “the Store app itself isn’t properly registered” than to a cache issue. We checked winget right away.
winget --version # Result: 'winget' is not recognized as an internal or external command, # operable program or batch file.
We also checked licensing. Windows activation was perfectly fine. In other words, this was not an activation problem — the Store / App Installer family of components was simply missing.
What to Check First
Open PowerShell as Administrator and check whether App Installer is present. winget ships inside the Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller package.
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller # No output means App Installer is not installed for the current user.
You can also try re-registering it with the command below. It will fail, however, if the package files aren’t on the system at all.
Add-AppxPackage -RegisterByFamilyName -MainPackage Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller_8wekyb3d8bbwe # In our case this threw error 0x80073CF1. # Meaning: the package to register isn't on the system. A manual install is required.
Don’t burn much time here. If both the Store and DesktopAppInstaller are gone, it’s far faster to download the App Installer package directly and bring winget back to life than to keep wrestling with Store repair.
The Three Files You Need
It looks like grabbing App Installer alone should be enough, but in practice its dependencies have to go in first. Download these in order.
| Order | File | URL | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Microsoft.UI.Xaml 2.8 | https://www.nuget.org/api/v2/package/Microsoft.UI.Xaml/2.8.6 | Downloads as a .nupkg — unpack it and extract the .appx |
| 2 | Microsoft.VCLibs x64 | https://aka.ms/Microsoft.VCLibs.x64.14.00.Desktop.appx | If a newer version is already present, the error is safe to skip past |
| 3 | App Installer | https://aka.ms/getwinget | The .msixbundle that contains winget |
Microsoft.UI.Xaml may arrive as a NuGet package. That file is not an installer — it’s an archive. Rename the extension to zip or open it with any archive tool, then pull Microsoft.UI.Xaml.2.8.appx out of tools\AppX\x64\Release.
PowerShell Install Order
Collect the downloaded files in your Downloads folder and launch PowerShell as Administrator. The install order is Xaml, then VCLibs, then App Installer.
cd $env:USERPROFILE\Downloads Add-AppxPackage .\Microsoft.UI.Xaml*.appx Add-AppxPackage .\Microsoft.VCLibs.x64.14.00.Desktop.appx Add-AppxPackage .\Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller_*.msixbundle
You may hit error 0x80073D06 while installing VCLibs. If it means a higher version is already installed, you don’t need to treat it as a failure — just carry on with the App Installer step.
Once installation finishes, verify the package state.
Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller | Select Name, Version, PackageFullName, InstallLocation
In this recovery, winget --version ended up reporting v1.12.470.
When winget Is Installed but the Command Doesn’t Work
Even after App Installer goes in, a fresh PowerShell session may still not resolve the winget command. First, check whether the executable exists under the WindowsApps path.
$wa = Join-Path $env:LOCALAPPDATA 'Microsoft\WindowsApps' dir "$wa\winget.exe" & "$wa\winget.exe" --version
If that runs, the install succeeded and only the PATH update is lagging. Open a new terminal, or sign out / reboot, then check again. If it still fails, you can invoke winget.exe directly from its install location.
& "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.DesktopAppInstaller_1.27.470.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe\winget.exe" --version
Installing Windows Terminal and PowerShell
With winget alive again, you can install the basics of a dev environment without the Store. We started with Windows Terminal and the latest PowerShell.
winget install --id Microsoft.WindowsTerminal -e winget install --id Microsoft.PowerShell -e winget upgrade --all
At this point you have a minimally functional Windows development terminal again. Node.js, Git, VS Code, Docker Desktop and the rest can all be installed the same way.
Where We Actually Got Stuck
1. wsreset.exe is not a cure-all
It can help when the Store cache is merely corrupted. But when the Store app is missing entirely or its protocol handler is broken, all you get is the same “You’ll need a new app to open this link” message over and over.
2. A .nupkg is not something you feed to Add-AppxPackage
The Microsoft.UI.Xaml package arrives as a NuGet bundle. You have to unpack it and install the .appx inside. Judging by the file extension and trying to install it directly gets you nowhere.
3. Environment-variable paths have to be handled as strings
Writing $env:LOCALAPPDATA\Microsoft\WindowsAppsinline in PowerShell doesn’t expand the way you expect. Use Join-Path or a properly quoted path.
4. You may need a brand-new terminal after installing
If winget.exe exists but the command still doesn’t resolve, it’s likely a PATH propagation issue. Work through it in this order: new terminal, sign out, reboot.
Wrapping Up
On a Windows 11 machine with no Microsoft Store, recovering winget comes down to installing App Installer manually. Stage Microsoft.UI.Xaml and VCLibs first, then install the App Installer msixbundle. If winget doesn’t land on your PATH immediately afterward, run it directly from the WindowsApps path or from the installed package directory to confirm it works.
The full flow that continues all the way through installing Claude Code is covered separately in Recovering winget + Windows Terminal Without the Microsoft Store and Installing Claude Code. This article isolates just the Windows-side recovery procedure from that guide.
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