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Windows Phone 8.1 Users Are Having Trouble Downloading Apps From the Store (neowin.net)
An anonymous reader shares a report: While Microsoft ended mainstream support for Windows Phone 8.1 more than six months ago, there are some users that still utilize the platform as their daily driver. Although the company's overall mobile initiative isn't faring too well either, most users on older platforms are still there because they prefer it over the competition or weren't offered an upgrade path to Windows 10 Mobile. However, it now appears that Windows Phone 8.1 users are facing some unforeseen problems with the Store - and no, it isn't regarding the dearth of apps. According to reports, people on the platform have been unable to download apps from the Store since yesterday. Hundreds of people over in Windows phone Facebook groups, Reddit, and Microsoft support forums are complaining that they are being hit with error code 80070020 when attempting to download apps from the Store using their Windows Phone 8.1 devices. We have confirmed the presence of the issue on our devices too.
These could all have the same root cause, the Slashot outage and the Windows 8 app errors. Someone is really messing with those 6 users.
Give up the ghost already folks, Windows Phone IS A DEAD PLATFORM! As a Win Phone 7, 8 and even 10 user early in each products life cycle, I see why people like it so much, I really preferred it to android or iOS but I simply could not get the tools I need to get stuff done. It is sad that we have a duopoly but that is what it is.
Windows Phone users are considered an endangered species, and a careful experiment is taking place, where a selective stress is induced in the fragile ecosystem, to watch the reaction of the elusive beasts.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
I have no real gripe against Windows Phones.
But in the market you needed to be rather stupid or just a risk taker to get one when they were out.
There were the following issues.
1. Android and Apple had/have a solid place as #1 and #2 in popular Cell phone market. Apple Selling more Units (full phones and OS) while Android is the most widely distributed. (Hence Google pulled a Microsoft). Microsoft Windows Phones were a distant #3 for a while.
2. Microsoft has historically sucked at interopability. Being very behind in making 64bit versions of its OS, having software work on non-x86 hardware was always an issue. They made .NET to help fix these problems, yet .NET needs to be compiled for every type of devices. This means the wealth of software availability in windows, will just not be available.
3. Microsoft burned a lot of bridges in the past, Thinking they will be #1 for ever. So now a lot of vendors who have been burned my Microsoft were not too interested in MS Development for phones.
4. The Microsoft brand became the product that you needed, not the product you wanted. There wasn't anything you needed on a Microsoft Phone, so people in general didn't want it.
If you have a Windows Phone, you should be considered lucky that you had it as long as you did. But it is now going into legacy mode, and getting updates will be hard to do. As Microsoft is ramping down its support.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
You might be reading along thinking "Eh it's another old phone platform, people should move on already" but remember that Windows Phone 8.1 came out in 2014. That was four years ago.
The iPhone 5S also came out in 2014, and is still being fully supported by Apple. Even older iPhones that didn't get iOS 11 are working fine and can still download apps. With Android phones it depends on the company, but the Play Store is still working for everyone as far as I know.
How can you trust a company that drops old products so completely, so quickly? Microsoft is shooting themselves in the food by doing this.
They are pushing it like mad on Windows 10, but this kind of crap is why I'd never buy anything from them. They simply do not have the trustworthiness as a provider of an application store that can, at any given time, decide that you no longer have the app you paid for.
MS is run by beancounters. The moment they decide to retire something because it no longer prints money, it is a gone. Still used it? Something you paid for no is no longer available or no longer works? Sucks to be you.
So this is news? My god, woman, get back in the kitchen!
Can't these 3 people just buy new phones?
Dave Barnes 9 breweries within walking distance of my house
Now that'd be a description of Hell if there's one. Hell squared, actually.
You were warned not to play in the garden, now you are imprisoned in it. Choose an open source phone with an unlocked bootloader instead.
Both of them?
Everyone knows if you buy anything or interact with microsoft you are opening yourself up to abuse. They have been criminally convicted multiple times over for their business practices and sued many more times over for their shenanigans.
You know your getting into a relationship with an abusive other, you were told, you were warned, then you whine when abused. You then turn around and continue to support and fellate the abuser.
I have no sympathy left, why would I? The solution is obvious and simple, just leave.
Do MS users have some sort of stockholm syndrome? I have noticed my own government utilizing their products, I have seen schools businesses and hospitals using it. I watched a mans computer become a brick due to an update gone wrong where it attempted to overwrite and update his OS while in the middle of a work day.
*shrug* Do whatever you want I suppose but do not act surprised or indignant at the abuse you know your going to receive especially when your just going to bend over the next day and take it again without blinking.
It's too bad that you got yourself a phone with a dead platform, but move over, it's not going anywhere.
I jumped ship back in the Lumia 1020 days because I knew this ship was going to sink.
'error code 80070020' is produced by several Windows operating systems. It's afflicted some Windows Phone 10 users before.
Most solutions were either rechecking the associated Microsoft account, verifying system date/time were correct and for location, and system updates for Windows Update, which won't help phone users.
Always a chance this is final implementation of EOL for 8.1 users.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
no further comment.
That sounds about right.
Remember this news when Microsoft first launched Windows Phone by staging a mock funeral for the iPhone?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Windows Phone 8.1 User Is Having Trouble Downloading the App From the Store
There, fixed that for you.
Windows Embedded 8.1 Handheld is also impacted. I know because I happen to work for a company with a deployment of over 1000 units. Unlike the consumer version, the end of mainstream support of these things is not until 7/2019. Examples include Panasonic FZ-E1 and Honeywell Dolphin CT-50.
...all three of them?
"Unforeseen"... haha.