Much of Microsoft's work on Windows 11 has been cleaning up the mess of overlapping apps found on Windows 10. Some apps and features have been overhauled, while others have been removed entirely. Now, two more apps are being cut from new Windows 11 installations.
Microsoft just released Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25987 in the Canary Channel, intended as a test release for PCs enrolled in the Windows Insider Program. The update includes a few minor improvements to the initial setup process and editing PNG images, and the usual pile of bug fixes is present. The most notable change is that two applications won't be installed anymore when running a new installation of Windows 11: the Maps and "Movies and TV" apps.
Microsoft explained in a blog post, "Starting with this build, the Windows Maps and Movies and TV apps will no longer be installed after doing a clean install of the OS. The Windows Maps and Movies and TV apps will not be removed on upgrade for Insiders in the Canary Channel and continue to be available and updated via the Microsoft Store."
It's not a surprise to see the Movies and TV app going away. Windows 11 has a unified Media Player app, which replaced the old Groove Music player and the legacy Windows Media Player — the latter remains available to install in the Optional Features menu, if you really need it for some reason. A later update to Windows 11 made Media Player the default application for opening video files, instead of the Movies and TV app. At this point, the Movies and TV app is only needed to watch purchased content from the Microsoft Store, and everything else is handled by the unified Media Player app.
The Maps app is another holdover from the early Windows 10 era, when it was intended to run on both phones and PCs, and you could save locations and directions across devices. Windows Phone has been dead for years, and most people on PC just open maps in the web browser, so it probably didn't make sense for Microsoft to give it a Windows 11 overhaul. The Maps app also relies on Bing Maps, which is significantly less popular than Google Maps or Apple Maps.
The update does not remove the Maps and Movies and TV apps if they are already installed on a PC, which should remain the case when these changes roll out to the stable builds of Windows 11. You'll also still be able to download them from the Microsoft Store if you want.
Source: Windows Insider Blog