If you don’t want to (or can’t) run Windows 11 on your PC, the good news is that Microsoft will be providing at least a few app updates to Windows 10 to keep it feeling useful. One of those app updates is Windows 11’s revamped Microsoft Store, which is now available to Windows 10 users in the Release Preview Insider channel.
The new Microsoft Store isn’t dramatically different from the old one in its design, though a few of the changes are clear improvements—viewing your app library and grabbing updates for the apps you already have installed happens on the same screen now, which is handy. But the real reason to install it is its dramatically improved app selection. Microsoft has loosened the rules for the kinds of apps that can be submitted to and downloaded from the store, and apps like Zoom, Discord, the VLC Player, Adobe Reader, the LibreOffice suite, and even the Epic Games Store are all available to download through the store. Once installed, the apps look and work the same way as the standalone versions.
We’ll see how long it lasts, but I think it’s great that Microsoft isn’t just completely abandoning Windows 10 now that its successor is out the door. This new store is clearly a major improvement, and giving Windows 10 users access to it is not something they had to do.
wooo.
yaaaay.
Looking forward to this on my Windows 10 desktop, which will unfortunately remain on Windows 10 forever despite its being only 4 years old.
Can’t wait to use the updated windows store on my several year old computer that still runs modern games in 4k no problem. It’s the only computer I have that doesn’t run Linux and since I’ve stopped playing games and taken up other hobbies it will also be my last windows computer.
When Microsoft fired the first shot and put my computer it was on notice for the scrapheap I began actively shifting to Linux after earlier trialling it. I still have some things to test but this is just a question of fitting it in to my schedule. One of my computers I’m using to sort things out is now 100% Linux. No dual booting like before.
I’m sticking with Linux Mint for now but looking around on Youtube ended up watching a lot of videos showing how the Linux desktop experience has come on my leaps and bounds in the past couple of years. It’s not perfect but some “distros” are showing real polish. Elementary OS and Zorin OS are obvious ones. Manjuro has a similar desktop available too. I doubt I will use any of these. I’m just mentioning them as it seems the underlying desktop software has reached a credible point. The rest is mostly theming.
I get most of my stuff installed via vendor repositories or if out of date or unavailable via external repositories. Some Linux vendors provide a good curated “store” experience and others less so but it’s beginning to get there. I dont play games now but have tested Steam with an old classic game. It kind of works. For one Windows application I rely on Wine works. Some Linux vendors provide a mechanism which triggers Wine or Steam when you try to install a Windows application or game which is a nice touch and beginning to help everything become seamless. Overall Linux “stores” are not 100% good enough but good enough a pushy Microsoft gave me enough reason to ditch them. I simply do not care if Microsoft’s store is more polished. It’s not so polished and seamless it’s a world apart. Linux stores are now not so rough they’re usuable. They are no more than a step or two away not a big leap.