Microsoft Wants To Close the UWP, Win32 Divide With 'Windows Apps' (zdnet.com) 78
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: When Microsoft launched UWP in 2015, officials promised that the platform would provide apps with better performance and security because they'd be distributable and updatable from the Microsoft Store. Developers would be able to use a common set of programming interfaces across Windows 10, Windows Phone, HoloLens and more, officials said, when selling the UWP vision. The downside: UWP apps would work on Windows 10-based devices only. Developers would have to do work to get their apps to be UWP/Store-ready. And Win32 apps wouldn't get UWP features like touch and inking. Arguably, [Kevin Gallo, Corporate Vice President of the Windows Developer Platform] told me, "we shouldn't have gone that way," meaning creating this schism. But Microsoft execs -- including Gallo -- continue to maintain that UWP is not dead. Over the past year or so, Microsoft has been trying to undo some of the effects of what Gallo called the "massive divide" between Win32 and UWP by adding "modern desktop" elements to Win32 apps.
"By the time we are done, everything will just be called 'Windows apps,'" Gallo told me. "We're not quite there yet." But the ultimate idea is to make "every platform feature available to every developer." In short, Microsoft's new goal is to try to make all features available to all of the Windows frameworks. Saying that Microsoft is dropping or deprecating any of the Windows frameworks seems to have been declared from on-high as a big no-no. Instead, Win32, UWP, Windows Presentation Foundation are all "elevated to full status," as Gallo told me. What about the Microsoft Store? Gallo says it's not dead. In Gallo's view, "the Store is about commerce. It's another channel for distribution." But it's not the only way Windows users will be able to get apps. "You can trust apps differently. They don't need to be in the Store. People really just want to know if Microsoft considers an app good," he said.
ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley says "it sounds like Microsoft may be moving toward a model of getting apps Microsoft-certified and trusted and then allowing Windows developers to decide how best to distribute them -- via the Microsoft Store, the Web or other methods of their choosing."
"By the time we are done, everything will just be called 'Windows apps,'" Gallo told me. "We're not quite there yet." But the ultimate idea is to make "every platform feature available to every developer." In short, Microsoft's new goal is to try to make all features available to all of the Windows frameworks. Saying that Microsoft is dropping or deprecating any of the Windows frameworks seems to have been declared from on-high as a big no-no. Instead, Win32, UWP, Windows Presentation Foundation are all "elevated to full status," as Gallo told me. What about the Microsoft Store? Gallo says it's not dead. In Gallo's view, "the Store is about commerce. It's another channel for distribution." But it's not the only way Windows users will be able to get apps. "You can trust apps differently. They don't need to be in the Store. People really just want to know if Microsoft considers an app good," he said.
ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley says "it sounds like Microsoft may be moving toward a model of getting apps Microsoft-certified and trusted and then allowing Windows developers to decide how best to distribute them -- via the Microsoft Store, the Web or other methods of their choosing."
apps? We don't need no stinking apps. (Score:5, Funny)
Found the LUDDITE! (Score:2, Funny)
Modern app appers know that only APPS can app apps, and LUDDITE hackers are destroying modern appy App Store Apps by forcing Appsoft to bring appy apps to LUDDITE Win32 programs!
Apps!
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Apps are great. You get a nice sandbox for each one, it has to ask for every permission it wants, and install/uninstall is clean.
Even Linux is adopting the idea with things like FlatPak.
Sure you still need to be able to install apps which need to do more than the app system allows, but for a lot of use cases apps are a great idea.
Yet no an app (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, fuck the Store.
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I am pretty sure that there are many far more pleasant things to fuck out there.
Re:Yet no an app (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a pity that MS don't really commit to anything they do. As a user, the store is great - I like the idea of a single place where apps will auto-update without a million different update engines for each app running. (And, yes, linux world has this, so why not windows? apt-get update).
As to your direct point, remember that the store gained the ability to directly ship Win32 applications (evernote, inkscape and krita all come to mind as apps in the store that are Win32 apps.)
But.
They themselves don't seem to use it. (Why isn't SQL Server management studio in the store? Visual Studio? Visual studio code?) You cannot expect others to use what you don't use!
And... they make it over-complicated for developers. Microsoft have a long history of coming up with academically great ideas that are just so complex, they will never get long-term traction. (e.g., MSIX files, WinFS, WCF.) And they don't use it themselves.
There should have been a twin edict:
1. All MS Software uses the store, and
2. The designers of the store shall be responsive to programmer problems and difficulties in using the store. They shall solve problem and make the process as painless as possible for developers to get stuff into the store, within and without Microsoft.
And honestly, they almost needed a three: High-quality OSS programs should be repackaged by the Store team and released into the store for free as a service to the OSS community. (7z, gimp, etc.)
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That is not worth convenient updates.
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The Windows App Store and its special program types are clearly a step on the path to locking things down... one day normal consumers will *only* be able to load executables approved by Microsoft. Enterprise users will be able to jump through a bunch of hoops, again only with Microsofts blessing, to load custom programs, but that's it. Full lockdown. That is not worth convenient updates.
But the faithful will continue to accept whatever Windows decides they will accept. You planning on moving to a different platform? When Windows locks things down, the faithful will claim that is what they wanted all along.
Installed user base FTW!
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Feel free to replace Ubuntu and Canonical with Fedora and RedHat or any other combo of OS and Company
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It's a pity that MS don't really commit to anything they do.
I came here to say this.
My sense is that Microsoft has kind of a dual track. One side is software engineering, where some of their best ideas come from. The other side is business strategy based around doing things that enhance their market domination or protect their high profit product lines.
The latter *always* wins, even if it means hobbling or crippling good software engineering. The downside seems to be that weak but market-dominant products suppress good ideas and themselves don't see any improveme
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It's not perfect, but you should definitely check out Chocolatey: https://chocolatey.org/ [chocolatey.org]
It's as close as you can get to a Linux-like package manager.
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Its fine for everything else. I use it with no issues, but it can't play most of the games in my Steam library. ~90% won't run. Even with WINE or Proton, that figure goes down to ~85% that won't run.
Plus I use 7 at home and not 10
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You mean like Inkscape?
I will always say UWP really stands for (Score:5, Funny)
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This is accurate on a lot of levels. The Windows Runtime (WinRT) is borderline non-deterministic for projects written in .NET, relying on the ABI wrappers, as object lifetime/garbage disposal can take place "at the wrong time" internally within standard UWP components all on their own. Essentially your app can instantiate for example a virtualized ListViewItem which spins up internal UWP visual elements, app suspends for a while, a GC occurs within WinRT, and then the app crashes with a COM access violation
This is WACK (Score:2)
Presumably, this would be the next version of getting your app countersigned by Microsoft after passing Windows App Certification Kit testing [microsoft.com]. If the download isn't clean, the signature won't check out.
Fuck the Store (Score:1)
If you wanted to make a package manager, great, you should have done that. But we all knew what you were trying to do with the Windows Store - yet another cash grab at the expense of end users freedom and developers' revenue.
So far, UWP does not look so good (Score:2)
The UWP experience has been poor for the user. Apps that have a desktop counter part are severely limited by UWP.
Look at Overdrive for example. Desktop app can download audiobooks from your library and play or sync to MP3 players or iPods. The UWP app can only download and play the audiobooks, no option to sync.
VLC is similar. The UWP app can play a local video, of several formats. The Desktop app can handle playlists, devices, streaming and more.
Developing in UWP has been painful too. Limited feature
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If there is a move to a UWP world, I'll be looking at other operating systems.
You should have moved already. There already was a move to a UWP world. It eventually failed, but around the same time, my main OS changed from Windows to Linux Mint. Windows has been banished to a VM where it can't cause me any long term problems.
Bring Out Your Dead! (Score:3)
What about the Microsoft Store? Gallo says it's not dead.
Bring out your dead!
.The Windows Store goes limp.)
A user comes out with a dead-looking Windows Store in a nightshirst slung over his shoulder. He starts to put the Windows Store on the cart.
User: Here's one-
Internet: Ninepence.
Windows Store: (feebly) I'm not dead!
Internet: (suprised) What?
User: Nothing! Here's your ninepence....
Windows Store: I'm not dead!
Internet: 'Ere! 'E says 'e's not dead!
User: Yes he is.
Windows Store: I'm not!
Internet: 'E isn't?
User: Well... he will be soon-- he's very ill...
Windows Store: I'm getting better!
User: No you're not, you'll be stone dead in a moment.
Internet: I can't take 'im like that! It's against regulations!
Windows Store: I don't want to go on the cart....
User: Oh, don't be such a baby.
Internet: I can't take 'im....
Windows Store: I feel fine!
User: Well, do us a favor...
Internet: I can't!
User: Can you hang around a couple of minutes? He won't be long...
Internet: No, gotta get to BestBuy, they lost nine today.
User: Well, when's your next round?
Internet: Thursday.
Windows Store: I think I'll go for a walk....
User: You're not fooling anyone, you know--
(to Internet) Look, isn't there something you can do...?
(they both look around)
Windows Store: I feel happy! I feel happy!
(the Internet deals the Windows Store a swift blow to the head with his wooden spoon.
User: (throwing the Windows Store onto the cart) Ah. thanks very much.
Internet: Not at all. See you on Thursday!
User: Right! All right....
WODE (Score:2)
C# essentially started as Microsoft's take on Java after the debacle that was J#. And now they're really starting to catch up with the whole "write once, debug everywhere" philosophy. Having a consistent API is nice, but having a consistent platform would be nicer. A colleague was telling me at lunch of the various weirdnesses that he's discovered with using .Net Standard libraries in UWP vs .Net Framework. I myself have run into problems with MissingMethodException in an Azure support library [github.com] due to a badl
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Use the Win32 API. It has not changed for two decades. Three decades if you don't use Microsoft compilers.
Too little, too late? (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember looking into UWP at one point. When it first came out, it basically necessitated throwing out all existing code (managed code only) and effectively banned software that uses certain open source licenses if you wanted to use the Windows Store. They have since fixed these deficiencies to some extent, but not before the Windows Store got itself a reputation for being full of shovelware, half-assed ports that you have to pay for that you can get for free elsewhere.
This feels like them tossing in the towel and acknowledging that legacy Win32 code is basically the only reason they're still in the consumer OS game while trying to save face over their efforts to kill it. (They have a few more hooks in the enterprise OS game, but how did that work out for BlackBerry?)
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the only reason they're still in the consumer OS game
Still in the game? They have 80% [statcounter.com] of the market (and not sure if those 3% unknown are real, possibly a few points more). If you go by Steam then 96% [steampowered.com] of the PC gaming market. Sure you can talk about cell phones and tablets and consoles and the PC market is a bit down [venturebeat.com] but it's still ~260 million PCs/year * 80% = 200+ million Windows PCs. I've heard that Microsoft's days are numbered now for 20 years but they're still here and YotLD is the running joke. Maybe Apple will kick up a dust storm with Macs using cust
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I never said that Microsoft's days were numbered. I'm saying that when they start throwing away their ability to run legacy code, whether it's a technical reason or a marketing reason, it doesn't go well for them.
See:
All Itanium versions of Windows.
Windows RT (8 on ARM)
Windows 10 S
Edge
People use Windows because it runs the stuff they've always run. Take that away and their loyalty will be fleeting. And the replacement they'd flock to wouldn't be Linux. Maybe Mac for some stuff. But realistically, most peopl
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They also presented UWP as a way of migrating off all that old crufty non high DPI code that is Win32 (which would never be fixed to work reliably with high DPI screens. If Win32 is no longer old and crufty and needs to be abandoned, did MS ever come out with a plan for fixing high DPI win32 apps? If not, whats the point?!?
Re:Too little, too late? (Score:4, Informative)
From the article, it looks like the biggest change is that they're opening UWP-specific UI stuff to Win32 code. I suspect that old GDI-using Win32 code isn't going to be any more friendly to high DPI screens than it ever was, but Win32 apps that are updated to use the new UI stuff will be able to handle it.
Re:Too little, too late? (Score:5, Interesting)
In theory yes, you typically reference font sizes in points, and one point is 1/72 of an inch - it has a real physical world measurement so should come out the same physical size wether displayed on a screen or printed.
Bitmap graphics however are used for a lot of (most?) non textual elements of a typical gui, and they are measured in pixels and a higher dpi output device has smaller pixels... You have to scale the bitmap, which often looks ugly. But bitmaps are easier than vector graphics, so thats what most people did and there was very little downside to it as very few people had a high dpi display especially on windows.
Also displaying things at the correct size depends on the software knowing the physical size of the screen and being able to calculate the DPI. It's been possible for a long time for the os to query the size/dpi from the monitor, but windows traditionally didn't do that and as a result many cheaper monitors never bothered to implement that function (or just return bogus data).
SGI IRIX was good back in the days, most of its ui was vector based instead of bitmaps so it could scale to any dpi.
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The scaling options wouldn't be half as annoying if Microsoft had implemented a fallback for misbehaving applications. Very often it's like they looked at +25%, decided lots of UI elements didn't need to scale and just made the text a little bigger. Which becomes total trash when you want +100% or something like that. Last I checked there was no easy way to say this application's high DPI support is crap, just tell the application it's on a display half the resolution and upscale it. Like you have a 4K moni
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That's what apple did with the retina displays, older applications would believe they are on a screen 1/4 of the resolution so its doubled both horizontally and vertically, each pixel becomes exactly 4 pixels. The retina macbooks had exactly double the resolution of the previous model macbook so non retina aware applications looked the same, and retina aware ones looked smoother.
But it only really works where the new resolution is a direct multiple of the previous one, otherwise the scaling looks ugly as no
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But there's also a more ominous possibility here: The store may have failed like the phones, but it sounds like they're trying to present an excuse to put up a tollgate for Win32 software: "People really just want to know if Microsoft considers an app good". No. No one has ever asked Microsoft to pick software for them. That sounds to me like an excuse to limit access and perhaps require a Microsoft license if you want your Win32 software to be installable.
Microsoft's trust. (Score:1)
Because people really want to know whether or not a company that breaks their computer on a seasonal cycle and just says "Oops. Our bad." when it causes issues thinks that a given third party app is "trusted."
Sorry, Microsoft. I'd trust an app called "ObviouslyAVirus.exe" before I'd trust your judgement. You have no desire to care if your users system's work beyond being able
It's not dead ... (Score:4, Insightful)
What about the Microsoft Store? Gallo says it's not dead.
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Thanks for the link, there were probably still a couple people on the planet who hadn't heard that reference ten million times.
New youngsters are born every day ...
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Faster/easier updates allow them to release buggier code earlier and then try to patch it up later - basically making the users the beta testers.
Better security because you update everything in one go, making it easier to do so (like linux distros have done for years)..
Better security because you install from a repository, rather than running arbitrary executables from potentially dubious websites - the average slashdot reader may be qualified to do the necessary checks to do this safely, but the average en
Give it up already MS (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Give it up already MS (Score:4, Insightful)
UWP is idiotic.
Yes, it is.
PC's and phones have much different usage scenarios.
Only because the vendors have forced this upon us. There's no good reason why you shouldn't be able to pair (or heaven forbid, plug in) a keyboard and use it the same as a PC.
The limitations of the sandbox model severely impact productivity, that's acceptable on a phone but not on your primary work device
That might be acceptable on your phone, but not mine. Why can't your phone be your primary work device?
Re:Give it up already MS (Score:4, Informative)
Only because the vendors have forced this upon us. There's no good reason why you shouldn't be able to pair (or heaven forbid, plug in) a keyboard and use it the same as a PC.
This exactly, my phone is more powerful than the high end desktop i used just a few years ago. All i want is a small dock to put the phone in, connect a keyboard/mouse and monitor and use it as a desktop.
Motorola offered something like this (atrix?), samsung do (dex), and many android phones can be manually hacked to work this way but it's never been really pushed by manufacturers and there are not really any standard interoperable docks available.
A big part of this is microsoft - there is a general belief that desktops must use windows and that nothing else would sell, and windows never really ran on phones (windows mobile doesnt count as it was never compatible with desktop win32)...
The fact is most people could get by just fine with a dockable android phone, there would only be a few small niches that would require a full size desktop, and being able to carry a phone around and dock it at any desk would be extremely convenient.
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It's true that sandboxing isn't appropriate for some applications requiring broad-ranged permissions and access, but at lot of what people download and run has no need for unfettered access to the entire PC and all the user's files. This complete access is what malware / ransomware thrives on.
I would have loved for Microsoft to develop a sane extension to normal Win32 apps for a permissions and sandboxing model many years ago rather than forcing an entirely new and backwards incompatible system like UWP.
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PC's and phones have much different usage scenarios.
Do they? In all situations? Personally I find many things I use I do so identically on the phone as the PC. Sure not a word processor, but then don't discount a unified approach just because it doesn't suit your specific use case.
Haven't tried it (Score:2, Insightful)
Our software was written in C# and winforms. Don't want to move to WPF - XAML looks haphazard and silly but it is for UI devs who came from the web groups and a way to remove UI from real coding. Don't care about UWP. Who wants to spend all that time rewriting apps again and again.
Maybe if MS gets their act together and finally picks a standard instead of half assed web programming and poorly implemented open source we might change. Yeah I know they want cross platform support. But you can't leave your
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Apple v. Pepper (Score:2)
Microsoft tries to leverage themselves and utterly fails then claims it was a mistake. No they knew exactly what they were doing and why they were doing it.
With a supreme court decision probably a few months away this is going to be interesting.
Win32 to UWP? (Score:1)
2001-2005 Microsoft sold large corporations 5 year support & upgrade agreements and did not deliver any significant upgrades to SQL Server, Windows Server, etc.
2011 Silverlight announcement that it would not receive significant new functionality
2012 - 2019 Visual Studio major upgrades in 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2019 contained, outside of C++ developers, cosmetic and minor add on changes
2011 - 2017 Microsoft pushed multiple different browser wrapped in an app technologies as replacement for native mobile ap
Same old Microsoft, threatens developers, mess up (Score:2)
Because they wanted Win32 developers on UWP so they could get into the phone and tablet market with the sluggish Windows OS but with lots of applications so it might have a chance. But Microsoft was in the pen computing business long ago and in the handheld
They're slow (Score:2, Insightful)
Bring me back the Windows 7 calculator, please! It loads instantly. The Windows 10 calculator has about a 3 or 4 second pause. Annoying when you randomly open it to calculate something quickly.
Typical Microsoft ... (Score:1)
Which means it will be bloated, slow, and riddled with security holes.
Microsoft has been obsessed with these Swiss-army things for years, then end up being ridiculously complex, slow as hell, and plagued with problems until they abandon it.
As a desktop OS, Windows is going downhill fast as they design for hand-held devices ... and as a mobile OS Windows has always been a steaming pile of shit.
This should
example (Score:3)
an example of the infighting going on inside the MS complex for the outside world to see.
there have been countless stories of how different dept. from MS with semi-competing solutions do a lot of infighting.
if you think that doesn't matter, think again the next time you wonder how Windows could have become such a bloated clusterfuck.
footshot (Score:1)