Hi guys, I’ve recently heard the news on the new Windows 10S. In the moment I saw it, I remembered everything Tim Sweeney said about Microsoft closing up their platform.
On Windows 10S by default they are only allowing apps on Windows Store. Like Tim said, it seems they are doing step by step to try and be unnoticed.
What are your thoughts on that?
A necessary step for Windows to survive as a consumer platform. It need to be able to compete on price and simply with Android and iOS. Windows 10 S not only makes it possible for MS to have a free edition of Windows, but it will hopefully increase the availability of UWP apps.
It is possible that Windows will become truly closed some day in the far future, but without UWP it will be almost gone before that could happen.
Right now a cheaper and simpler Windows experience that can be upgraded to an unlimited pro version is the best possible scenario. It might very well fail miserably, but if you want Windows to remain relevant you better hope it won’t!
I hope Epic starts to understand this and drops it misguided hate of UWP.
UWP is a shame and a failure already. Windows 10S won’t change anything. Developers and customers already rejected all the Microsoft nonsense about a closed Windows system of any kind. Epic Games is right about hating UWP and the Windows Store.
UWP is the future of windows. Win32 API must be deprectated, closed off and removed from system if windows is ever to progress. over 25 years of backward compatibility with badly designed API and past cruft won’t end well.
I honestly can’t tell if you’re serious or not. Killing non-UWP support for most people would be the death of Windows. Businesses need it to run, so you would lose that entire market overnight. Consumers would lose all existing games. Content creators would lose all existing media editing tools. It would be pushing the reset button on decades of work by thousands of people, killing some companies that rely on software sales entirely.
If there is one thing that is certain it’s that hate for closed platforms is always warranted.
Complete nonsense. There’s no reason to change anything in the first place - win32 has worked fine for decades and still works fine today.
Windows 32 > UWP.
Microsoft is using UWP as a cash grab to force people threw their service (Like an Smartphone app-store) and get all the money for themselves.
Instead of actually developing software worth buying and cornering the market by making superior product.
Also would help if they actually made a OS worth using… Because we know what the S on 10s stands for. 
The irony of this is that historically, the only reason Windows survived and became the dominant OS was because it ran on hardware from multiple manufacturers and software from any vendor. It is literally the reason the PC beat the mac the first time.
This new Microsoft strategy to try and copy everything Apple is crazy. Those things are not strengths of MS. They are not innovative hardware designers. They already have an entire industry of software manufacturers - dont alienate them with this UWP store BS.
Instead of trying to copy Apple, they should focus on why people choose to use Windows and make that better.
For example, gaming. No one games on a mac. No one. Their graphics are like 3 generations behind.
Embrace PC Gaming and make it a focus of advertising and development.
Hmmmm most of you made fair points. But I wonder, Apple and Google monopolize the market with their “closed” stores. And it’s working amazingly well for them. Is Microsoft the only one that can’t do the same? Because if they are leaning in that direction, it’s because they have a vision in which this might just work.
Xbox PC Store is concurring directly with steam, and losing miserably. Steam also wants to steal console market with Steam Link and all the hardware. So… Why would Microsoft just stand still?
Technically speaking Android is not closed, people’s stupidity notwithstanding.
Apple… well, Apple users are easily dazzled by shiny things.
I dont think the app store for macOS has been the amazing success that the iOS one was. And Google look to be focusing on Android apps for ChomeOS as an attempt to get the app store ‘magic’ to transfer over the their desktop OS. So it’s not been easy for any of these companies on the store for desktops/laptops front as they may first have expected, and Microsoft have the additional disadvantages of having such a poor start at getting developers to embrace their app store and modern API’s etc, not to mention they have no mobile platform momentum to leverage.
But there are no other stores working on an Android device, are they? I mean closed in that sense.
Hahah… But’s it’s true.
Miss the days of the Apple 2 I do. When there was third party support.
But if Apple made their next I phone look like this:
I would buy apple again. 
It doesn’t matter if Win32 is superior for power users, the masses don’t need it and don’t want it. They want the simplicity of iOS or Android.
Windows use has been declining among home users for a long time. Should Microsoft just give up? With UWP it at least might stay relevant.
And there will be a “Pro” version of Windows with full Win32 support for a very long time. But without a mass market we won’t have the current multitude of hardware in the future.
A more closed Windows version for the noobs is the best way to ensure the survivsl of an open Windows ecosysyem for the elite!
I don’t think anyone really cares about Windows surviving, I don’t think any software manufacturer wants a future where they’d have to pay 30% of their profits to reach consumers. As professionals we require any software that we might need to be able to run, so if there’s a platform that can do that, that’s what we’ll use. It doesn’t matter if Windows continues if I can’t use my software on it.
There will be pro versions of Windows with Win32 support for as long as there are programs needing it. That doesn’t mean a simpler consumer version is a bad idea.
There are two alternatives for the future (20+ years) of Windows:
Alternative 2 is better even if you exclusively use (or sell) Win32 apps, as there will be more hardware at better prices. As a bonus you will have the common consumer apps available if you need them.
Everyone should wish for UWP to suceed, even if you prefer Win32.
Sorry but no, as was pointed out before Win32 or not, there is nothing justifiable about locking the search engine.
Is the Xbox One reveal debacle with the always-on-kinect, non-tradeable games and always-online requirement really that far behind us that people have forgotten?
Does no one remember the Windows 10 spying even today?
If there is one thing I can be certain of under pain of death and that is that Microsoft never does anything that is pro-consumer.
Good, hopefully people will realize that this UWP push and the whole “Windows unification” is just another, subtler attempt at getting to the same goal.
(Didn’t check the EU thing, I’d sooner die than giving clicks to the verge)
Just a note–for the Xbox it was never a case of an always-on requirement, it was a check-in once for each 24 hours, which is much different and well within the capabilities of 99% of users
