Apps "greyed out" and not opening on HP Laptop

[ALeung]

Several of my apps (e.g., Cortana, Photos, iCloud) are greyed-out. When I try to open the apps, I get this message: "The app can't open".

An interesting thing, though I'm unsure if it's related, is when I booted up my computer, HP Support Assistant was being uninstalled although I had not requested this. I tried to re-install HP Support Assistant. During the installation process, I get the following message: "HP Support Assistant was not installed successfully. An error occurred during the installation.:-2"

Thanks for any guidance. 

[Dexterhale]

It seems like you might have a couple of issues going on here. Try these steps:

1. Check for Windows Updates: Go to Settings > Update & Security > Check for updates to make sure everything’s up to date.

2. Reset the Apps: Go to Settings > Apps & features, select the greyed-out app (like Cortana or Photos), click Advanced options, and hit Reset.

3. Run the Troubleshooter: Go to Settings > Update & Security > Troubleshoot, then run the Windows Store Apps troubleshooter.

4. Reinstall HP Support Assistant: Uninstall it via Control Panel, then reinstall the latest version from the official HP site.

5. Run SFC: Open Command Prompt (Admin) and type sfc/ scannow to check for system file issues.

[ALeung]

Dexter,

Thanks for the help!

1) Check Windows Update - up-to-date

2) Reset the Apps - I get the following message "We couldn't reset this app. Try again in a bit" when I tried to reset, e.g., Copilot

3) Run the Troubleshooter - I get the following message "Problem found: Hanging or crashing apps - Not fixed"

4) Reinstall HP Support Assistant - Installation successful

5) Run SFC - How do you access admin? I get the following message "You must be an administrator running a console session in order to use the sfc utility". This is a personal laptop.

Thank you!