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Why Microsoft Store Discontinued Support for Office Apps

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Re: Why Microsoft Store Discontinued Support for Office Apps

#21

Post by izacus »

4rt wrote: post #14

the installation story for devs writing windows apps has been dreadful for 3 decades. vs used to help you build setup.exe, which was always a huge chore to use. clickonce was launched to replace all this with hosted manifests and auto-updates and modern features like that, and immediately forgotten about because it was so broken. nobody ever used it. then they brought out WinUI and the windows store, which was so ove…

> vs used to help you build setup.exe, which was always a huge chore to use.

Was it... REALLY though? Everyone knew how to use the setup wizards.

Re: Why Microsoft Store Discontinued Support for Office Apps

#22

Post by coffeeaddict1 »

lionkor wrote: post #18
nalekberov wrote: post #17

Seriously who needs a Store App on a desktop OS? The process should be as simple as visiting app’s website, optionally paying, and installing. No middle man, hence less point of breakage.

Well, the rest of the world (outside of MacOS and Windows) settled on repositories and package managers, with hash verification, versioning, updating/installing/uninstalling with composable commands (that can also be used via GUIs), etc. Use Fedora for half a year and tell me what you prefer.

And yet none of those "outsiders" have figured out a way to economically renumerate developers for their work. Flathub had a initiative a few years ago to add payments to help developers fund their projects, but I haven't seen anything come out of it.

Re: Why Microsoft Store Discontinued Support for Office Apps

#24

Post by 4rt »

7bit wrote: post #19
4rt wrote: post #14

the installation story for devs writing windows apps has been dreadful for 3 decades. vs used to help you build setup.exe, which was always a huge chore to use. clickonce was launched to replace all this with hosted manifests and auto-updates and modern features like that, and immediately forgotten about because it was so broken. nobody ever used it. then they brought out WinUI and the windows store, which was so ove…

Anecdotally, yesterday I launched the Windows sandbox to investigate some files and noticed that notepad.exe was not available. A quick research revealed that this is because notepad.exe was replaced by the modern variant with Colipot and shit, which is an AppX package (Windows Store file format). And since the store was ripped out of the sandbox, there's no Notepad in it. I'm not sure I would say Microsoft forgot ab…

rumour has it the next version of windows will be called Microsoft 365 Azure for Desktop XBOX Edition so that each of the executives in the money making sections gets their piece.

Re: Why Microsoft Store Discontinued Support for Office Apps

#25

Post by iamcalledrob »

4rt wrote: post #14

the installation story for devs writing windows apps has been dreadful for 3 decades. vs used to help you build setup.exe, which was always a huge chore to use. clickonce was launched to replace all this with hosted manifests and auto-updates and modern features like that, and immediately forgotten about because it was so broken. nobody ever used it. then they brought out WinUI and the windows store, which was so ove…

Not to mention the need for a code signing certificate, which even in 2026 is a gigantic and expensive hassle to obtain.

You can spend weeks of effort and hundreds of dollars just to ship an installable hello world app these days. The MS store takes care of signing, but there are other trade-offs.

The entire desktop TTHW (time to installable hello world) story is horrible across the board:

- Win: Decent tech foundation for updates made insufferable by code signing requirements.

- Mac: No update story, cobble together a bunch of tools/scripts, notarize releases with Apple (not very onerous), hope you don't ship an update that crashes at launch because you broke your updater too.

- Linux: No consensus on how to package. Bob wants a .deb, Alice wants a snap. Flatpak seems to be winning overall. The best tool to smooth over Win/Mac installer headaches (Conveyor) doesn't support flatpak. Bummer.

Re: Why Microsoft Store Discontinued Support for Office Apps

#26

Post by 4rt »

izacus wrote: post #21
4rt wrote: post #14

the installation story for devs writing windows apps has been dreadful for 3 decades. vs used to help you build setup.exe, which was always a huge chore to use. clickonce was launched to replace all this with hosted manifests and auto-updates and modern features like that, and immediately forgotten about because it was so broken. nobody ever used it. then they brought out WinUI and the windows store, which was so ove…

> vs used to help you build setup.exe, which was always a huge chore to use. Was it... REALLY though? Everyone knew how to use the setup wizards.

i think it's telling that Nullsoft created their own installer for WinAmp and its still 20 years later one of the most sane and popular ways of distributing apps.

Re: Why Microsoft Store Discontinued Support for Office Apps

#27

Post by nalekberov »

lionkor wrote: post #18
nalekberov wrote: post #17

Seriously who needs a Store App on a desktop OS? The process should be as simple as visiting app’s website, optionally paying, and installing. No middle man, hence less point of breakage.

Well, the rest of the world (outside of MacOS and Windows) settled on repositories and package managers, with hash verification, versioning, updating/installing/uninstalling with composable commands (that can also be used via GUIs), etc. Use Fedora for half a year and tell me what you prefer.

I use package manager too regardless of OS, but after all Microsoft Store isn’t for tech-savvy people, right?

Re: Why Microsoft Store Discontinued Support for Office Apps

#29

Post by Brian_K_White »

lionkor wrote: post #18
nalekberov wrote: post #17

Seriously who needs a Store App on a desktop OS? The process should be as simple as visiting app’s website, optionally paying, and installing. No middle man, hence less point of breakage.

Well, the rest of the world (outside of MacOS and Windows) settled on repositories and package managers, with hash verification, versioning, updating/installing/uninstalling with composable commands (that can also be used via GUIs), etc. Use Fedora for half a year and tell me what you prefer.

Those are only tolerable because: They are free, optional, operated by people who have no incentive to be the slightest bit anti-user, and you are never actually limited to them so you can take the convenience because you still get the options and control when you do need it.

Produce the `./configure && make install` for Office and you would have a point.

Re: Why Microsoft Store Discontinued Support for Office Apps

#30

Post by LtWorf »

izacus wrote: post #21
4rt wrote: post #14

the installation story for devs writing windows apps has been dreadful for 3 decades. vs used to help you build setup.exe, which was always a huge chore to use. clickonce was launched to replace all this with hosted manifests and auto-updates and modern features like that, and immediately forgotten about because it was so broken. nobody ever used it. then they brought out WinUI and the windows store, which was so ove…

> vs used to help you build setup.exe, which was always a huge chore to use. Was it... REALLY though? Everyone knew how to use the setup wizards.

The problem wasn't using them, it was creating one for your software.
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