RIP, UWP We hardly knew ye, and never cared.

Way back in 2017, I wrote a post that I titled, "UWP is a failure, and Microsoft knows it."

Nearly two years after releasing Windows 10 and UWP into the world with dreams of marketplace dominance dancing in their heads, Microsoft themselves are only now bringing their 2nd-biggest software product [i.e. Office] to their own store. And it isn't a native UWP version of the program, either; it's a port, brought over via the Project Centennial Desktop App Bridge (henceforth referred to as PCDAB).

That's right: Windows 10 and UWP have flopped so hard that Microsoft themselves can't be bothered to develop natively for the platform.

If Microsoft can't be bothered to develop natively for UWP, then nobody else is going to, either, ever, and that means that UWP is effectively dead on arrival. The only programs that Microsoft will see on its storefront from here on out will be PCDAB ports, none of which will perform as well as Win32 executable versions of those same programs, and even that assumes that developers bother to do that much; with the Windows 10 store being such a shit-show, and the added costs involved in maintaining a 2nd version of their software, all in service of lining Microsoft's pockets, I suspect that most developers simply won't bother to port their programs over in the first place.

Worse yet, a dearth of quality UWP apps means that Windows 10 users are spending this crucial time in the platform's life-cycle locking software-buying habits that exclude the Windows store almost entirely. That's not reversible; if even Windows 10 users are thoroughly trained to buy their software elsewhere, then developers have even less reason to develop for UWP, and that is self-reinforcing. It's a vicious cycle, with the lack of adopters resulting in a lack of apps, which ensures not only a slower rate of adoption, but also ensures that new adopters of Windows 10 don't adopt the storefront along with the OS, resulting in ever fewer apps...

At this point, Microsoft would probably love to be faced with a simple chicken-and-egg problem, rather than this rapidly increasing inertia [...] It seems to be that only one question remains: is this vicious cycle now so well-established that Microsoft is simply unable turn it around?

That was then; this is now. And here in the now, we have the answer to this 100% rhetorical question, as reported by The Verge:

Microsoft had a dream with Windows 8 that involved universal Windows apps that would span across phones, tablets, PCs, and even Xbox consoles. The plan was that app developers could write a single app for all of these devices, and it would magically span across them all. This dream really started to fall apart after Windows Phone failed, but it’s well and truly over now.

Microsoft has spent years pushing developers to create special apps for the company’s Universal Windows Platform (UWP), and today, it’s putting the final nail in the UWP coffin. Microsoft is finally allowing game developers to bring full native Win32 games to the Microsoft Store, meaning the many games that developers publish on popular stores like Steam don’t have to be rebuilt for UWP.

“We recognize that Win32 is the app format that game developers love to use and gamers love to play, so we are excited to share that we will be enabling full support for native Win32 games to the Microsoft Store on Windows,” explains Microsoft’s gaming chief Phil Spencer. “This will unlock more options for developers and gamers alike, allowing for the customization and control they’ve come to expect from the open Windows gaming ecosystem.”

That's right; UWP is definitely dead, and I fucking called it, two years ago.

Who's the man? I am.

Microsoft's mixed messaging Windows 7 users to get GWX upgrade nag screens again... and also DirectX 12. WTF, MSFT?

Before we get started, I just want to point out that Microsoft announced both of these Windows 7 developments on the same day.

First, from The Inquirer:

THE NAGS are back, and we're not talking about the invasion of the killer horses that we dreamt about after a particularly cheeky late-night cheeseboard.

Microsoft has confirmed that starting next month, Windows 7 users will start to see pop-ups warning them that their beloved operating system is reaching end of life on 14th January 2020.

This will send shudders of resigned recognition to all those who lived through the saga of nag screens that plagued Windows 7 and 8.x users when Windows 10 was rolled out as a free upgrade and made it very difficult to opt out.

The good news is that these "courtesy reminders" contain some learnings gained from that whole debacle, with a promise that this time you'll see far fewer, and that there'll be a definite "don't remind me again" checkbox to get rid of them.

And then, from The Verge:

Microsoft is making a very surprising addition to Windows 7 this week, with the support of DirectX 12 for the nearly 10-year-old operating system. While Windows 7 support will end in less than a year and Microsoft will start sending notifications to PCs next month, the company is allowing some game developers to implement DirectX 12. The first game to appear with DirectX 12 support on Windows 7 is Blizzard’s World of Warcraft.

Microsoft heard feedback from Blizzard that features like multi-threading in DirectX 12 were bringing substantial framerate improvements to World of Warcraft on Windows 10. Blizzard wanted these same features on Windows 7, presumably because it still has a large base of players on this older OS. Microsoft originally launched DirectX 12 as part of Windows 10, and has not made it available for Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 users.

This is just baffling, even for Microsoft. I can see bringing the new Chromium/Edge browser to Windows 7; Microsoft have a significant number of large-volume license-holders to whom they're trying to sell additional years of Windows 7 support ($300 USD per PC for three years, and only if you have a volume license), so adding new functionality to the platform for them makes a certain amount of sense. But WoW players? In a year in which they're trying desperately to convert individual Windows 7 users into Windows 10 Home (or Pro) users, for Microsoft to be giving those same individual W7 users additional reasons not to switch makes no obvious sense.

Oh, and these same PC gamers, who've mostly rejected both of Microsoft's ecosystems, i.e. Windows 10 and XBox Live? Microsoft has more goodies in the bag for them, too, even if they don't play WoW.

Microsoft's ongoing struggles with QA and Edge

After a terrible month of QA issues with Windows 10's 1809 update, and following revelations that those issues aren't actually over yet, even after 1809's re-release, comes news that Microsoft's other flagship product has similar issues. As reported by betanews:

Microsoft's update procedure for Windows 10 has been a little, er, wobbly of late. The Windows 10 October 2018 Update proved so problematic that it had to pulled, and even the re-released version is far from perfect.

Now it seems the cancer is spreading to Office. Having released a series of updates for Office 2010, 2013 and 2016 as part of this month's Patch Tuesday, Microsoft has now pulled two of them and advised sysadmins to uninstall the updates if they have already been installed.

In both instances -- KB4461522 and KB2863821 -- Microsoft says that the problematic updates can lead to application crashes. While this is not as serious a problem as, say, data loss, it does little to quieten the fears that have been voiced about the quality control Microsoft has over its updates.

So, the bad news is that Microsoft's attempts to reassure consumers and Enterprise customers that their quality assurance procedures really are up to the challenge of delivering software-as-a-service seem to be failing. What's the good news?

Apparently, the good news is that Edge has failed so hard that Microsoft is now collaborating with Google and Qualcomm to bring the Chrome browser to Windows 10's ARM version. Yes, really.

Microsoft tap Phil Spencer to fix the Windows Microsoft Store

The Windows Store has been a wasteland of shit ever since Microsoft first launched it alongside Windows 8. Married to a Universal Windows Platform that never did take off, it has long been a developer- and customer-forsaken place; intended as the channel through which all applications would flow, to both desktop and mobile devices, it's instead become something of an albatross: an awkward, burdensome reminder of Microsoft's monopolistic sins.

This is at least partly why Microsoft rebranded the Store last year; Windows Store had negative connotations for consumers from which they wanted to distance themselves, in much the same way that the Windows 10 name was intended to put more distance between the current Windows version and the wildly unpopular Windows 8. Microsoft only changed the name, though, apparently hoping that a re-brand would be change enough.

Consumers, however, weren't fooled; when they remember to use the new name, it's normally as an afterthought. And, critically, nothing else about the Store was changed; it's still a developer- and customer-forsaken place, where it's both easier and more desirable to search for TV shows than software. This is especially true of games; even when they're running Windows 10, PC gamers use Steam, not Microsoft's terrible storefront, unless they're given no other choice. And Valve is working hard to ensure that they have other choices in most, if not all, cases.

The situation was clearly untenable for Microsoft, and it seems they've finally decided to do something about it: they're tapping the one person in their senior leadership team who seems to understand what consumers want, and to understand that it's important for a business to provide what consumers are asking for, to finally fix the thing. As reported by WCCFTech:

Phil Spencer, previously Head of Xbox at Microsoft, was promoted last year into the Senior Leadership Team where he now reports directly to CEO Satya Nadella as the Executive Vice President of Gaming. Spencer has since suggested that gaming isn’t the proverbial red-headed stepchild at Microsoft anymore, thanks to the importance placed by Nadella himself in this growing market.

We haven’t heard much from him after E3 2018. However, he briefly appeared on yesterday’s Inside Xbox: X018 Special live from Mexico City to make a few statements, the most interesting of which directly addressed the state of Windows 10 gaming on PC.
When asked about what will come next, he expressed the intent to focus on improving the Windows Store (now formally now as Microsoft Store) so that it can be properly tailored towards gamers.

No, Microsoft, it won't. It really, really won't.

From Simon Sharwood at The Reg:

Microsoft says 'majority' of Windows 10 use will be 'streamlined S mode'
Which is just-about an admission Win 10 is a mess

No, Microsoft, it won't.

I mean, we've known for a while that Microsoft would really, really like for S mode, and thus their digital storefront, to be the way that a majority of users experience Windows; this has always been the plan, so it's no surprise that MS see this as the best possible outcome... for them. The only surprise is that they're finally speaking openly about their desire to make this happen, in spite of the fact that consumers' rejection of this vision of personal computing has been pretty much total, up to this point.

Consumers have made it very plain that they do not want this. So much so, in fact, that Microsoft's latest aborted attempt to push it on them anyway has now been walked back. But don't expect MS to stop trying. Forcing every PC user on Earth into their walled-garden Microsoft Store ecosystem is, very plainly, MS's entire plan for Windows, and they will try again.

The Reg's reporting doesn't include anything much that Thurrott.com didn't already cover yesterday, apart from this bit of editorializing:

"We expect the majority of customers to enjoy the benefits of Windows 10 in S mode," Belfiore wrote. Which is hardly a ringing endorsement of Windows 10 in its dominant configuration!

Which is completely accurate - after all, MS wouldn't be having to push WX so hard if it were good enough to sell itself on the product's merits. That isn't, however, the point. The point is that MS want "S mode" to supplant a Windows in which consumers retain control over their PCs, and the software that gets installed on them, and instead relies on Microsoft to serve up everything. The point is raw, naked greed; it's MS wanting to be Apple, with their own iOS-style App Store.

The fact that MS want it to happen, however, doesn't mean that it will happen. Because for all its issues, Windows 10 is still better than its "S mode" counterpart, which is why Windows 10 S flopped in the first place. Making S mode an option for all WX users doesn't do anything to make it more attractive to those users, or alter the fact that the "Universal Windows Platform" has utterly failed to be a thing. The "benefits" of S mode are non-existent; the experience of using S mode is shit, and there's nothing happening which will alter that in any way at all.

Sorry, Joe.

LOL. Microsoft store denied! by Google.

Well played, Google. Well played.

As reported by The Verge:

In a surprise move, Google has published Chrome in the Windows Store this week, but not in the way you might be expecting.

Google has simply packaged an app for Windows 10 that opens itself to the Chrome download page. Downloading Chrome will then open up the link in your default Windows 10 browser. It’s a hilarious snub of the Windows Store, and makes it clear Google isn’t planning to bring its browser to Microsoft’s store any time soon.

There are many reasons Google won’t likely bring Chrome to the Windows Store, but the primary reason is probably related to Microsoft’s Windows 10 S restrictions. Windows Store apps that browse the web must use HTML and JavaScript engines provided by Windows 10, and Google’s Chrome browser uses its own Blink rendering engine. Google would have to create a special Chrome app specifically for Windows 10 S, much like it would have needed to do to support Windows Phone years ago. It’s extremely unlikely that Google is even considering the work involved in such a project.

It's good business, and good trolling, all in one tiny gesture. This "app" won't help anyone on Windows 10 S who wants to use Chrome, of course, but there are so few of them that it's not especially likely that Google gives a shit.

Or, as Mehedi Hassan at Thurrott.com puts it:

At the end of the day, the Google Chrome Installer is still very, very pointless — the only functionality of the so-called installer is to open the download link for Chrome on your default browser. It basically removes the need for you to open Internet Explorer (or Microsoft Edge) and manually go to the Chrome download page everytime you set up a new Windows 10 installation.

-5/5 stars.

That's not pointless at all; that's some solid value. If there's anything pointless in this picture, it would have to be the Windows Microsoft Store itself.

Oh, well. Maybe next year...

UPDATED DEC. 20th:

Aaaaaaaand it's gone. From The Verge:

Google published a Chrome app in the Windows Store earlier today, which just directed users to a download link to install the browser. Microsoft isn’t impressed with Google’s obvious snub of the Windows Store, and it’s taking action. “We have removed the Google Chrome Installer App from Microsoft Store, as it violates our Microsoft Store policies,” says a Microsoft spokesperson in a statement to The Verge.

Citing the need to ensure apps “provide unique and distinct value,” Microsoft says “we welcome Google to build a Microsoft Store browser app compliant with our Microsoft Store policies.” That’s an invitation that Google is unlikely to accept.

[...]

The Verge understands Google created this installer app to combat the fake Chrome apps that can be found in the Windows Store, a problem Microsoft has been trying to address for years. Google’s workaround has now been removed from the Windows Store, so Windows 10 users will have to continue using Microsoft Edge to access the download site for Chrome if they want to access Google’s browser.

Wow. You'd almost think that Microsoft lack a sense of humour about their horrible digital storefront.