Desktop Apps Pave their way to Windows Store

[bogas04]

meh

[George P Global Moderator]

Nice, as expected. I figure many of the well known desktop apps will go into the store, I'm sure even if you don't use it you know about WinZip. I personally use WinRAR though.

[alisalem]

"Go to developer's website".. That's just ridiculous!

[+devHead Subscriber²]

"Go to developer's website".. That's just ridiculous!

I know; why have it in the App Store if you can't get it from there. Oh, I guess I can just open my browser and go to winzip.com. If you can't obtain it there, it's not a store, it's just advertising. Of course, you get ads on many of the new Metro apps. With music, for example. I don't care about the brainless idiot pop music being churned out, I just want to play my music. But now, it's like my PC is just another conduit for advertising.

[grayscale]

I know; why have it in the App Store if you can't get it from there. Oh, I guess I can just open my browser and go to winzip.com. If you can't obtain it there, it's not a store, it's just advertising. Of course, you get ads on many of the new Metro apps. With music, for example. I don't care about the brainless idiot pop music being churned out, I just want to play my music. But now, it's like my PC is just another conduit for advertising.

I think that desktop apps will work fine on the store but they need to improve the store first. If they will allow filtering the desktop apps (or other outside-the-store link 'apps'), then it's fine. I'm saying it will work because instead of typing the specific app's website, the average users will be presented with the available apps including ratings and reviews from other windows users (assuming those reviews will not turn into fanboy/hater threads). I personally would like better sorting (like sorting based on which app had the latest update). I do agree that the store may turn into just an advertising app if not controlled properly.

[neo1911]

I'm sure even if you don't use it you know about WinZip. I personally use WinRAR though.

I'm sure even if you don't use it you know about WinRar. I personally use 7Zip though.

[~Johnny]

"Go to developer's website".. That's just ridiculous!

It was decided like that because most desktop developers for years have had their own licensing, payment and refund models in place in their own stores, many distributing product keys that go along with payments - whereas anything bought in the store doesn't and are tried directly to your Microsoft account and are automatically validated by Windows.

It means the desktop apps get to keep their payment model, they don't have to give Microsoft a 30% share, don't have to recode anything, but they still get listed in the store.

[siah1214]

God you idiots will hate on ANYTHING. It gives developers exposure that they may not have had, and it's free. When people want apps, they'll go to the app store. Why not provide an avenue for desktop developers to not get forgotten?

[Active.]

Yet another 'no-compromise' experience I guess.

[mdtaUK]

So now Desktop app developers have a place to advertise their apps that comes with all Windows 8 versions, and people still complain?!?!

[MS Bob 11]

But isn't the fact that they are still listed in the store good enough? You may discover some great desktop apps that you may not know about once the store gets abundant and I don't see anything wrong with having to download from the vendor's website.

[George P Global Moderator]

But isn't the fact that they are still listed in the store good enough? You may discover some great desktop apps that you may not know about once the store gets abundant and I don't see anything wrong with having to download from the vendor's website.

This is so true, lots of general users don't know about a number of good apps out there, often they have to dive through web searches to try and find what they want and end up installing crapware or even malware by mistake.

[Noir Angel]

Again I never thought i'd find myself saying this but Apple's approach to this matter makes more sense. You can buy, install, and update desktop apps from their app store.

[Arachno 1D]

Sorry to say MS doenst do anything for free its a buiness and as I see it this is another revenue stream to tap in to a ready market of windows users much akin to the google play store.They will initially make it free to advertise just to fill the shelves up but then the software retailer will see a range of advertising fees arise from the ether to stay listed in the store front.

[Noir Angel]

Sorry to say MS doenst do anything for free its a buiness and as I see it this is another revenue stream to tap in to a ready market of windows users much akin to the google play store.They will initially make it free to advertise just to fill the shelves up but then the software retailer will see a range of advertising fees arise from the ether to stay listed in the store front.

I'm pretty sure that's not true given that they're allowing people to distribute Metro apps free.

[Mr. Gibs]

Again I never thought i'd find myself saying this but Apple's approach to this matter makes more sense. You can buy, install, and update desktop apps from their app store.

Just going to copy pasta what Johnny said:

It was decided like that because most desktop developers for years have had their own licensing, payment and refund models in place in their own stores, many distributing product keys that go along with payments - whereas anything bought in the store doesn't and are tried directly to your Microsoft account and are automatically validated by Windows.

It means the desktop apps get to keep their payment model, they don't have to give Microsoft a 30% share, don't have to recode anything, but they still get listed in the store.

I prefer this way actually and I'm sure many developers do too. It's free advertising for them, and they don't have to pay MS anything. The downside is they are responsible for handling the payments, the software delivery etc.

[Syanide]

Without updates, this is pretty meh.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Again I never thought i'd find myself saying this but Apple's approach to this matter makes more sense. You can buy, install, and update desktop apps from their app store.

Didn't Apple just change their Store to be like the Windows one in this regard? (i.e. you can only install sandboxed apps now, same as Windows Store)

[Noir Angel]

Didn't Apple just change their Store to be like the Windows one in this regard? (i.e. you can only install sandboxed apps now, same as Windows Store)

Don't know. But you can still distribute desktop apps through their store, even if it is only sandboxed apps they're still fully functional as desktop apps, whereas you're still limited to RT apps on the Microsoft store so they're not the same.

[Gaffney]

Why would Microsoft host the files for apps not developed for Metro, if Microsoft just added a straight download link to the file then the developers would complain that their websites aren't getting traffic etc and they need to sell adverts to help fund the bandwidth costs.

It's a way to advertise good desktop applications and lead people to the correct location instead of using Google where results are not filtered and people end up downloading viruses, junk and so on.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Don't know. But you can still distribute desktop apps through their store, even if it is only sandboxed apps they're still fully functional as desktop apps, whereas you're still limited to RT apps on the Microsoft store so they're not the same.

What does "fully functional" mean in this context? Do you just mean being able to run in windowed mode with arbitrary window sizes?

[Noir Angel]

What does "fully functional" mean in this context? Do you just mean being able to run in windowed mode with arbitrary window sizes?

No, I mean they're able to actually run as desktop apps. The design paradigms are far less restrictive and developers can use their own UI functions and menu layouts.

[George P Global Moderator]

The MS store is there to advertise apps first and foremost, distribution and management are limited to metro apps because of the way they're coded and sandboxed and will just run without issue, mostly anyways. Desktop apps, well known ones like the stuff Adobe sells for example IS sold, distributed and managed by them directly. They DON'T want to change this and MS ISN'T going to force them to change this just to list their app in the store. How is this such a bad thing? If MS did force it and tried to take away the developers control of their desktop apps and also want a cut of it like with metro apps you'd lot would also turn around and go crazy over that as well.

Some of you will never be happy with anything MS does, I'm kinda glad they've stopped, to an extent on trying to please as many people as they can now. It's just not working anyways.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

No, I mean they're able to actually run as desktop apps. The design paradigms are far less restrictive and developers can use their own UI functions and menu layouts.

I don't understand. What would prevent developers from implementing whatever "UI functions" and menu layouts they want?

[contextfree]

imo this is just Microsoft punting on the question of what a modern desktop app should be. They don't want to offer fulfillment through the store until they can guarantee things like modern API usage (WinRT), controlled backgrounding (PLM), isolation (AppContainer) and declarative install/uninstall (AppX), however it is much easier to implement and enforce these in a new environment with very limited interaction with the existing desktop than it would be to bring them to the existing environment (or to implement all features of the existing environment such as arbitrary windowing in the new environment, again without sacrificing the nice properties they want the new environment to have). Then there's the question of how existing desktop apps and code could be adapted to whatever the new standard is, or are they going to introduce yet another desktop framework (after Win32, MFC, WinForms, WPF, Silverlight OOB ...) and expect everyone to rewrite their apps yet again? Eventually they will have to figure something out though ... maybe new advances in lightweight virtualization could help.