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Desktop Apps Make Their Way Into the Windows Store (arstechnica.com)
With Windows 8, Microsoft introduced Windows Store, which consisted of "Metro / Modern UI" apps which worked best on touch capable devices. Since the release of Windows 8, many users complained that they wanted traditional apps -- the applications they had grown accustomed to -- to be included in Windows Store. This would have come in handy to especially Windows RT users, who couldn't easily get traditional applications installed on their devices. Well, guess, what, that's changing now. Though only for Windows 10 users who have gotten the Anniversary Update -- and guess what, many haven't and might not for another month and a half. At any rate, ArsTechnica elaborates: Until now, applications built for and sold through the Windows Store in Windows 10 have been built for the Universal Windows Platform (UWP), the common set of APIs that spans Windows 10 across all the many devices it supports. This has left one major category of application, the traditional desktop application built using the Win32 API, behind. Announced at Build 2015, codename Project Centennial -- now officially titled the Desktop App Converter -- is Microsoft's solution to this problem. It allows developers to repackage existing Win32 applications with few or no changes and sell them through the store. Applications packaged this way aren't subject to all the sandbox restrictions that UWP applications are, ensuring that most will work unmodified. But they are also given the same kind of clean installation, upgrading, and uninstallation that we've all come to expect from Store-delivered software. Centennial is designed to provide not just a way of bringing Win32 apps into the store; it also provides a transition path so that developers can add UWP-based functionality to their old applications on a piecemeal basis. Evernote, one of the launch applications, uses UWP APIs to include support for Live Tiles and Windows' notification system. In this way, developers can create applications that work better on Windows 10 but without having to rewrite them entirely for Windows 10.
You too, Peter Bright.
The real win would be to replace the Windows registry with file-system based configuration.
Strike that... I won't look in the Windows Store at all.
Is this submission by app appers guy, because it reads like one.
Those traditional desktop applications are all x86 assemblies. Can't run them on an ARM operating system
Nobody uses the Windows Store because nobody wants to give Microsoft 30% of their revenue. Until this is changed, the Windows Store will be full of tumbleweeds and not applications.
sandbox restrictions went to far so they have to do this to save the store.
A few I'd like to see:
Win Dir Stat or Tree Size
VLC
PeaZip or 7Zip
Audacity
Chrome
FireFox
Pale Moon
Opera or whatever that one browser from that Opera guy is called
A file hash calculator with right-click menu extension built in
SnagIt, GreenShot
A FOSS Bit Torrent client
Various NirSoft Utilities
These people need to be MADE to use Pokemon Go on their gaming rig.
I'll watch, thanks. Or not.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
This is probably to appease the VB6 developers out there that keep complaining about moving to .NET
I won't. But maybe I won't have a choice at some point.
This could prove to be quite an amusing turn of events. App stores require isolation to protect users from seedy nature of majority of apps available for free or purchase from the store. Without isolation these platforms would fall apart.
Providing an avenue that allows apps to run as normal software would have provided for some very interesting headlines had anyone actually used Microsoft's store.. Since nobody cares it is a moot point yet still quite interesting Microsoft is crazy enough to even contemplate such madness.
It hasn't been a cake-walk converting Zoom Player (http://zoomplayer.com) to the AppX model.
The 'Desktop Bridge' conversion tool breaks the Executable/AppData folder model introduced in Windows Vista and is completely incompatible with the Windows XP admin access model.
By this I mean that the app can't write any file to the installation folder.
And any files installed to the local AppData folder by the Win32 installer are non-accessible after the conversion to AppX (they are installed in a read-only folder where no API can be used to find the folder's path).
The work-around is to install everything to a single folder and then copy the required files to the local AppData folder on the initial run.
There are other issues dealing with the App's icon in various places, it seems they changed the model and it's impossible (as far as I can tell and as far as my questions get non-answers on the microsoft UWP forum) to present the same icon as a desktop app on the start menu, task bar and elsewhere.
I also found that some 3rd party components (DirectShow filters) don't always work in the virtualized environment, but it's something I'm trying to resolve with the authors.
And finally, there is no clear process to get a store listing for the App.
We filled in the form, got no reply that it was even received, later follow-ups on the MS forum resulting in this:
https://social.msdn.microsoft....
Hopefully they will streamline the process soon.
Zoom Player Lead Dev.
These aren't real appy apps, they're LUDDITE programs disguised as appy apps! Microsoft is going to kill Appdows 10 by letting LUDDITES ruin their appy app store!
Apps!
Imagine that, ANOTHER feature Linux had 20 years ago that Windows is only now getting.
I know Chrome & VLC are
so is 7zip & opera
Your app writes to the install directory for your app seems like a dumb thing to do. Even more so if each app is per user. So each per user app as data in both the app folder and some user home folder.
Please don't put any apps on the Windows store. That will only make Microsoft more invested in the idea that the store should be the ONLY way to get apps on Windows. MS big dream is to make that happen and have a 30% cut off all software sales.
Don't facilitate that by putting anything on their store.. just don't.
Supposedly Microsoft is also making UWP apps a bit less of a pain in the ass, and will be allowing 3rd party installations/download/management (IE- Steam) easily.
UWP has come a long way since windows 8 but it's still got a bit of work left. The application model is better for end users. Applications are jailed and run entirely in usermode. You don't need root(administrative privilages) to install them.
Still, UWP is only appropriate for applications that are self contained and live in one window (Really bad design choice there MS) - So that means productvity applications are a no go.
I've played two UWP games - The gears of War remake and the Halo 5 Forge.. They eat a TON of memory (Sandboxing a complex game means a lot of redundant memory usage) and there are some performance issues, but it's getting there. One thing I noticed, though, was you can alt-tab out of UWP games instantly. No video mode switch. No weird issues. Just seamless and fast.
Games used to have there own editor apps and now more have build in ones + some 3rd part or ext modding tools.
But with an store only system that can die / dev's will have to make it all DLC.
I have a local login for my Windows 10 machine
I remembered that I actually still have a subscription to the MLB tv app. Ok I thought, I guess I should use the app store thing which required logging into my Windows account, ok, no problem.
Had to reboot for some patch install a few days later... long story short they change your login profile from local to Windows without telling you
I was able to set it back up but I absolutely do not trust the Windows store at all now, that kind of garbage is NOT acceptable.
Whatever happened to CoolEdit ?
This would've been of little or no use to Windows RT devices. Aside from the fact they're too small to run Win32 applications well, practically all of those desktop apps are for x86, and Windows RT is Arm based. That's why Windows RT users couldn't get traditional apps. I don't think being able to sell them through the store would be likely to convince any developers to go to the trouble of reworking and recompiling for Arm, and then supporting that additional platform as well.
IMHO - This is long overdue for Windows on desktop, laptop and tablet. The sooner we can encourage people to get apps through the store the better, as the more controlled system will cut down on the likelihood that users will get unwanted crapware, malware, adware and wareware with the software they intend to install. We need to put a stop to this whole industry based around duping users into installing bundled rubbish (hell, even Oracle and Adobe are guilty of it).
Anyway, that's my 2c.
L8r.
But did you notice that under Supported Platform it reads "Windows 10 Pro" and "Windows 10 Enterprise" only?
I thought that died with metro, and the icon in win10 was just for people that needed to re-download past purchasing mistakes.
Those traditional desktop applications are all x86 assemblies. Can't run them on an ARM operating system
True, but not because of the ISA difference. Many developers of Windows desktop applications were willing to recompile them for ARM, just as Mac apps had been recompiled for PowerPC and then for Intel. Microsoft wouldn't let them, and it enforced this through a policy of not allowing any code to execute on the device unless signed by Microsoft, as if it were a g**d*** Xbox.
Adobe bought Cool Edit Pro, renamed it Audition, and put it behind a $240/year Creative Cloud subscription (source).
> rejecting a browser based on its name
Now why didn't you put that one at the top of your list so I knew to disregard your opinions sooner?
Steam
Who cares if they are metro or classic windowed applications? The only apps I can ascertain that the Windows 10 store sells are various poker, or video lottery terminal applications.... and a Facebook app for people who haven't yet determined the purpose of a web browser. How many Windows users are gambling addicts, and how many of those people owe it all to Microsoft's online store?
Because I'm pretty tired of Excel quirkinesses...
Like its terrible wifi performance, its shitty printer subsystem, the fact that most updates revert to "Defaults" which always seem to favour microsoft, and the general terrible shit that windows 10 does, maybe they could package Windows 7 in a UWP!!!