Add detection/removal for "LG Monitor App" — silently auto-installed via Windows Update / Microsoft Store when an LG monitor is connected

[Darkslide77]

Checklist

• I have searched for existing issues/discussions and didn't find any similar ones.

Describe the feature or improvement

I own an LG UltraGear monitor and hit this myself, which is what sent me looking for other reports of it. When an LG monitor is connected, LG ships a driver package (delivered through Windows Update, matched to specific monitor hardware IDs) that doesn't install a normal device driver at all its only job is to silently trigger installation of a Microsoft Store app by Package Family Name, with no consent dialog, no Store page visit, nothing. I pulled the actual driver/package artifacts off my own machine below to confirm exactly how it works.

Other reports of the same behavior:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/LGOLED/comments/1ukmub4/how_dare_you_install_your_installer_app_without/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/LGOLED/comments/1ujqf3w/popup_question/
• https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/discussions/windows11/windows-1011-auto-installing-%E2%80%9Clg-monitor-app-installer%E2%80%9D-lg-monitor-support-appli/4431666
• https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/discussions/windows11/why-the-lg-monitor-app-installed-without-my-notice/4304003

How it actually works (confirmed on my own PC)

1. Monitor connected → Windows identifies it as DISPLAY\GSM776F ("Generic Monitor (LG ULTRAGEAR)").
2. Windows Update silently stages two signed driver packages matched to that hardware ID (confirmed via pnputil /enum-drivers and the DriverStore FileRepository, timestamped ~11 minutes before the next step):
   • lgmonitorappextension.inf (Class = Extension, ExtensionId {3846ad8c-dd27-433d-ab89-453654cd542a}) — maps specific LG monitor hardware IDs (e.g. Monitor\GSM776F/GSM776E for the 32GP850, and about a dozen other models listed in the INF) to a synthetic "component" ID GSM9E8C.
   • lgmonitorappsoftwarecomponent.inf (Class = SoftwareComponent) — declares that component ID and, critically, contains:

     [LG_Monitor_Control_Install]
     SoftwareType=2
     SoftwareID=pfn://LGElectronics.LGMonitorApp_cfnzzhwkr8z5w

     SoftwareID=pfn://... is a direct Package Family Name reference — this is the exact mechanism Windows uses to auto-install a Store app tied to a piece of hardware, and it bypasses any Store consent UI entirely.
3. Windows creates a phantom "software component" device for this (SWD\DRIVERENUM\...#LGMONITORAPP&..., HardwareID SWC\GSM9E8C, DeviceDesc "LG Monitor Support Application"), confirmed installed on my machine at 1/17/2026 8:51:21 PM — a timestamp I never interacted with.
4. That phantom device install is what triggers Windows to silently pull and install the actual Store package: LGElectronics.LGMonitorApp_1.2606.1601.0_x86__cfnzzhwkr8z5w, installed to C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\LGElectronics.LGMonitorApp_1.2606.1601.0_x86__cfnzzhwkr8z5w.

At no point in this chain is there a prompt, a Store page, or an "Install" button — it rides entirely on the normal Windows Update driver pipeline.

Evidence attached

I'm attaching (from my own machine just device/driver metadata):

• lgmonitorappextension.inf and lgmonitorappsoftwarecomponent.inf — the two driver files as staged in the DriverStore, showing the pfn:// app-install trigger.
• LG_SoftwareComponent_Device.reg — export of the resulting phantom device registry entry under HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum\SWD\DRIVERENUM\..., showing the HardwareID = SWC\GSM9E8C that Windows matched to pull the app.

Enhancement request

1. Removal: add an entry to Config/Apps.json for the Store package, following the same schema already used for HP/Dell/Lenovo OEM bloatware:

{
  "FriendlyName": "LG Monitor App",
  "AppId": "LGElectronics.LGMonitorApp",
  "Description": "LG OEM monitor control app, silently installed via a Windows Update driver package that triggers a Store install with no consent prompt",
  "SelectedByDefault": false,
  "Recommendation": "optional",
  "RemovalMethod": "Appx"
}

2. Prevent reinstall (the actual fix, since removal alone doesn't stop it from coming back the next time the monitor reconnects or Windows Update runs): Windows has a built-in "Device Installation Restrictions" policy for exactly this — Prevent installation of devices that match any of these device IDs (Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Device Installation > Device Installation Restrictions), backed by:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\DeviceInstall\Restrictions

Blocking hardware ID SWC\GSM9E8C (the software-component ID above) via this policy should stop the phantom device — and therefore the Store app pull — from being created again, without touching any other driver installs. I did not apply this on my own machine and can't hand over a guaranteed-correct .reg file for the block list itself — the exact subkey/value layout Windows generates for a multi-entry "deny list" needs to be confirmed against a real gpedit.msc export rather than guessed, and I'd rather flag the correct mechanism than ship a maintainer a wrong registry blob. Happy to test a candidate .reg if someone wants to co-verify.

Let me know if it'd help to grab anything else (event log entries, full pnputil driver dump, etc.) happy to pull more since this is actively on my system.

Examples

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Additional context

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