[Mini-News] Windows 10 App Store install limit detailed.

[GoodBytes]

That wasn't the case when I upgraded my iPhone a couple of months ago, I was quite happily installing my apps to both simultaneously without issue. People using iPads, iMacs, iPhones and iPods all in tandem don't seem to be reporting any major issues either, so unless something has changed very recently.

 

I don't think it's any big issue to require an Apple account either. You need one to buy anything from the App store, and I'd kind of expect that tbh. Is the same not true for Android? It seems to be for Microsoft.

So to correct myself. Based on Apple documentation, which you can read here: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT204074

is says:

When you turn on iTunes Match, Family Sharing, or Automatic Downloads, or when you download past purchases on your computer, iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, that device becomes associated with your Apple ID. You can associate your Apple ID with up to 10 devices, with a maximum of 5 computers at any time.

So it is like Windows 10, just a bit more complicated with a 5 computer max limit.

[othertomperson]

So to correct myself. Based on Apple documentation, which you can read here: https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT204074

is says:

So it is like Windows 10, just a bit more complicated with a 5 computer max limit.

 

Fair enough. Didn't realise this. Ugh. So arbitrary.

[The Benjamins]

If you have more than 10 devices that you use daily, well then it might be time to take a step back and reflect on your life

You need to take a step back and see what you are missing.

[IAMSWIFT1]

10 is a decent amount I think. Lets say I have 1 desktop, 2 laptops, 1 tablet, and a smartphone. That would be 5 devices. This i think would be a fair estimate. So 10 is plenty.

And I Can Let My Install It On My parents Devices If They Need It

[Nowak]

It makes more sense than the 81 device limit of Windows 8.1, tbh.

[You_are_a_cunt]

10 devices is alot. Even I don't have that many Win10 ready boxes <_<

[Robin88]

Nothing against you GoodBytes, this mini news post is incredibly useful to know exactly what limitations there is on Apps on Windows 10, but having been looking through the Windows Store I'm having a hard time trying to figure out why exactly anyone would care about how many installs of apps you can make, almost everything on there is a total crock of shit, and it's worse than the Play store for crap and that's saying something. There's probably some really cool and useful stuff on there but having been through 16 pages of apps the most useful thing I found was a camera app, and I have no idea how good it is at that.

On mobile versions of Windows I can sort of justify using the Windows Store, but on desktop I would rather dig my eyes out with a spoon than use the garbage on the store, I can find applications using google that do so much more than what is on the store that I cannot think of a compelling reason to even bother opening the application when I get Windows 10.

Still, at least it has reasonable restrictions on number of concurrent installs, even if there's nothing worth installing to begin with

[RH00D]

Nothing against you GoodBytes, this mini news post is incredibly useful to know exactly what limitations there is on Apps on Windows 10, but having been looking through the Windows Store I'm having a hard time trying to figure out why exactly anyone would care about how many installs of apps you can make, almost everything on there is a total crock of shit, and it's worse than the Play store for crap and that's saying something. There's probably some really cool and useful stuff on there but having been through 16 pages of apps the most useful thing I found was a camera app, and I have no idea how good it is at that.

On mobile versions of Windows I can sort of justify using the Windows Store, but on desktop I would rather dig my eyes out with a spoon than use the garbage on the store, I can find applications using google that do so much more than what is on the store that I cannot think of a compelling reason to even bother opening the application when I get Windows 10.

Still, at least it has reasonable restrictions on number of concurrent installs, even if there's nothing worth installing to begin with

 

It should be better in Windows 10 as Microsoft announced the Store will support buying/downloading traditional Win32 apps directly through the Store and they would run sandboxed. They announced it at a conference, forget which one. Of course, you can still get Win32 apps from anywhere on the Internet still and run them non-sandboxed.

[Robin88]

It should be better in Windows 10 as Microsoft announced the Store will support buying/downloading traditional Win32 apps directly through the Store and they would run sandboxed. They announced it at a conference, forget which one. Of course, you can still get Win32 apps from anywhere on the Internet still and run them non-sandboxed.

Ah, I see, that's good to know, sandboxing would be useful to prevent Malware completely hosing a system, and if they can get devs to put their stuff on the store then great, but many apps would never get on there in the first place, most useful stuff isn't designed around a touch interface, and if I have to choose between apps with ads loaded into them and the security of sandboxing or searching for the app on the internet then I'll take searching the internet any day.

For people more likely to get infested with malware then I'll push them to use the store, but for myself I'd rather get it from the devs website or sourceforge or wherever if I can.

[GoodBytes]

Nothing against you GoodBytes, this mini news post is incredibly useful to know exactly what limitations there is on Apps on Windows 10, but having been looking through the Windows Store I'm having a hard time trying to figure out why exactly anyone would care about how many installs of apps you can make, almost everything on there is a total crock of shit, and it's worse than the Play store for crap and that's saying something. There's probably some really cool and useful stuff on there but having been through 16 pages of apps the most useful thing I found was a camera app, and I have no idea how good it is at that.

On mobile versions of Windows I can sort of justify using the Windows Store, but on desktop I would rather dig my eyes out with a spoon than use the garbage on the store, I can find applications using google that do so much more than what is on the store that I cannot think of a compelling reason to even bother opening the application when I get Windows 10.

Still, at least it has reasonable restrictions on number of concurrent installs, even if there's nothing worth installing to begin with

Yea. Basically the apps you see here are Windows 8 store apps, mostly. Developers interest in Windows 8 was minimal at best. It didn't help that, to be fair, Microsoft didn't really focus on the app store and ModernUI framework was limiting. Universal app framework (evolution of Modern UI), is far more, or should I say, incredibly more powerful. And you can see that Microsoft is now very into it. Windows 10 built-in apps shows that you can make nice and powerful apps. You also have, finally, Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps, the same as on Android and iOS (this was not possibly with ModernUI), heck they even make a powerful web browser which beats Chrome on multiple, including Google very own, Java-Script benchmarks, all by being far less CPU intensive and consume much less RAM.

I think this will start getting developer interest, and the large user base Windows 10 will only help.

So in the coming year or so, I expect official popular apps to start showing it's face, and by another year or so, to start seeing them being as good and feature complete as the official versions on other platforms.

[Kherm]

I meant like if the school ITs decided to install these apps onto the school computers,

Actually, you can set up a Windows Store for business on Windows 10 Enterprise / Education iirc. It most likely solves this problem 

[CatCloud]

@GoodBytes any idea how this effect reinstalls?

[Briggsy]

Me: "What version of windows is this?"

Microsoft: "ten."

Me: "how many years will windows 10 receive security fixes?"

Microsoft: "ten."

Me: "how many concurrent devices can I have a windows app installed on?"

Microsoft: "ten."

Me: "How many days until windows 10 launches?"

Microsoft "ten."

Me: "I see what's going on here...."

Microsoft: "ten."

[Derangel]

@GoodBytes any idea how this effect reinstalls?

 

Read the full op, it's mentioned right there.

[GoodBytes]

Ah, I see, that's good to know, sandboxing would be useful to prevent Malware completely hosing a system, and if they can get devs to put their stuff on the store then great, but many apps would never get on there in the first place, most useful stuff isn't designed around a touch interface, and if I have to choose between apps with ads loaded into them and the security of sandboxing or searching for the app on the internet then I'll take searching the internet any day.

For people more likely to get infested with malware then I'll push them to use the store, but for myself I'd rather get it from the devs website or sourceforge or wherever if I can.

Desktop apps can be published via the store. Microsoft, of course, takes a 30% cut on sales, but one can argue that everything in terms of sales processing and providing reports is manages by Microsoft, so it comes down to about the same more or less (hosting your own online stores costs, plus you need employees to manage it all). The desktop apps doesn't need to be touch friendly.

As they run under sandbox environment, don't expect tools, system tweak software, and so on to be found there.

But other kind of software could see their face. Other, free ones, might be interested to put their software to be able to implement Microsoft ad system in them.

[GoodBytes]

@GoodBytes any idea how this effect reinstalls?

I covered it in my posts. I knew this would be a concern, so I looked into it on my side, especially that I did multiple re-installed and upgrade of builds on my desktop during the beta stages. (Now, Windows 10 is solid)

[Robin88]

Yea. Basically the apps you see here are Windows 8 store apps, mostly. Developers interest in Windows 8 was minimal at best. It didn't help that, to be fair, Microsoft didn't really focus on the app store and ModernUI framework was limiting. Universal app framework (evolution of Modern UI), is far more, or should I say, incredibly more powerful. And you can see that Microsoft is now very into it. Windows 10 built-in apps shows that you can make nice and powerful apps. You also have, finally, Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps, the same as on Android and iOS (this was not possibly with ModernUI), heck they even make a powerful web browser which beats Chrome on multiple, including Google very own, Java-Script benchmarks, all by being far less CPU intensive and consume much less RAM.

I think this will start getting developer interest, and the large user base Windows 10 will only help.

So in the coming year or so, I expect official popular apps to start showing it's face, and by another year or so, to start seeing them being as good and feature complete as the official versions on other platforms.

Yeah I get where you're coming from, but it always seems to be the same thing, it's coming in the future, and that's not really going to help market adoption of the store when the only stuff on there currently is rubbish, the average Joe isn't going to care what will be there in the future, they only care what's on there now.

Their new Universal framework is cool, but what about performance? If you're porting an Android app that was developed in Java then performance is going to suck, games especially will suffer and when everyone sees how poorly a ported game runs on Windows then no one will want to use it, iOS apps shouldn't have this issue but there's still the potential for bad performance, unless MS figured it out already and have something in place to cover that possibility.

MS Edge is looking promising, but I'll wait for official reviews of the finished version before trusting MS's performance figures, they've been known to fudge things like this before, although to be honest even a fart in a hurricane is more efficient than what Chrome is, so I can sort of believe it to be less resource intensive than what Chrome is, the only thing that bothers me is I have an electricity topup meter, and I have to use Internet Explorer to use the home topup kit, and I'm concerned that it won't work with Edge, I don't want to have to keep a VM of Windows 7/8 just to topup the electricity.

[RH00D]

@Robin88 IE 11 is still in Windows 10 for legacy support its in Accessories in the Start menu

[Yoinkerman]

10 seems alright. I have about 6 computers myself and I'd consider myself an edge case.

[totjup5]

10 will be more than enough for the majority of users. I don't see this as being an issue, and it makes sense.

[Pesmerga]

I think it's more than reasonable, 10 devices and you can remove them when you want? I'm ok with that :3

[Robin88]

@Robin88 IE 11 is still in Windows 10 for legacy support its in Accessories in the Start menu

Thank you very much for the info, I can upgrade then without worrying too much about it, and so can my mum as she has the same system, I'll probably hang fire for a few weeks until I have a better understanding of the bugs and other issues, but at least that's one thing I wont have to worry about

[Speedbird]

Microsoft has always done DRM better than everyone else. I am not saying it is perfect, but far better than others.And it better than to have no DRM, and that means that you need to purchase apps and DLC for apps / micro transaction for all your devices, and not just once for all.

While I agree that DRM on Microsoft products is well implemented, it does not really server its purpose. Microsoft Product Activation can be bypassed very easily, and it does not stop piracy at all. What Microsoft really needs to do is the same that Valve did with Steam - instead of trying to make the cracked experience inferior, they made the genuine experience superior. That is the secret to good DRM and reducing piracy.

[Blake]

Windows 10 has the ability to side-load apps, but it is not enabled by default (because of security reasons), and I have no idea how it will work exactly.

I thought that you have been able to side-load apps into windows since 8.0?

[GoodBytes]

Yeah I get where you're coming from, but it always seems to be the same thing, it's coming in the future, and that's not really going to help market adoption of the store when the only stuff on there currently is rubbish, the average Joe isn't going to care what will be there in the future, they only care what's on there now.

Well Microsoft can't do anything. They tried with Windows 8 to pay companies to make Modern UI apps, but all it ended up happening is that they took the money, put it in their pocket, and the resulting apps is like some intern guy did it in a summer all alone, type of quality app.

Like I said, you now have VLC which is pretty good (but I would like to see a universal app version of it, for a more polished experience, which will probably come very soon once Windows 10 is out), you have Word, Excel, PowerPoint mobile version, which are free, and they are the same as on iOS and Android, which are solid experience. Of course it doesn't compare to the full desktop Office, but considering that it is free, and has more than the basic features, it sure kicks: Microsoft Works (remember that thing?), OpenOffice, and LibreOffice on Windows side, and even Google Docs (assuming you don't use the multi-user edit thing which is actually available in Office online which you can access from your OneDrive account, also free).

Their new Universal framework is cool, but what about performance?

Performance is very good, from what I can see. Simplistic programs like Calculator takes the hit in startup time. But we are only talking about half a second more to load than the old calculator (at least on my desktop). The higher load time is that Universal App framework is much higher level, so it loads a bunch of stuff on the back, which probably more than half is not used, if not than 90% not used for such simplistic program. That would be guess based on little I know about it.

If you're porting an Android app that was developed in Java then performance is going to suck, games especially will suffer and when everyone sees how poorly a ported game runs on Windows then no one will want to use it, iOS apps shouldn't have this issue but there's still the potential for bad performance, unless MS figured it out already and have something in place to cover that possibility.

Java would not have a performance hit. Java programs don't run independently, they need a "player" of sorts to execute Java programs, this "player" is actually called a runtime environment. The idea of a Java based program, is that as long as you can install Java runtime, you can run your Java made program on that system. So technically, you can run Minecraft (being made in Java, if I am not mistaken, else assume I just mentioned some Java program name), on any device that can run Java... Windows, Linux based OS, MacOS, Blackberry, Symbian, WebOS, Android, you name it. Of course, you need the computational power else it run like a snail, but last I checked our PCs are a bit faster than smart-phones.

As for other languages, the way Microsoft system works is pretty interesting, Microsoft compiler will do most of the conversion work itself. Sure you COULD improve things further by doing things yourself, and do a better job than the compiler automated system which guesses things, but it does most of the work, which is isn't in the hands of the developers. So the results should be, at worst, far better than the experience we have on some console ported to PC games, where all the work is on the developers.

MS Edge is looking promising, but I'll wait for official reviews of the finished version before trusting MS's performance figures, they've been known to fudge things like this before, although to be honest even a fart in a hurricane is more efficient than what Chrome is, so I can sort of believe it to be less resource intensive than what Chrome is, the only thing that bothers me is I have an electricity topup meter, and I have to use Internet Explorer to use the home topup kit, and I'm concerned that it won't work with Edge, I don't want to have to keep a VM of Windows 7/8 just to topup the electricity.

MS tend to not really lie about their benchmarks, it's just that usually, the benchmarks they showcase is 1 of the many other ones in the different fields that is good, while the rest is horrible, or bad design. For example, in IE, when you go or forward a page, it reloaded the page entirely, and the page downloading is very slow. So the experience really gets a hit. Witch Edge, Microsoft scrap everything completely, and restarted from scratch. No more legacy code. And not only that, it is fully web standard compliant. Sadly, on day 1 Edge won't be 100% complete. But they did say that Edge will get continuous upgrade, no more waiting for the next version of Windows to get the new version, and they mentioned it will have more web standard support, further optimization and extension support using the same technology as Firefox and Chrome for easy porting of extentions.

IE11 is still in Windows 10, They must keep it included, because many programs are depended on it, as many includes IE (an ability that it has) into the software. Not to mention also most program help documentation window are using IE.

It is just buried. But it is there. Look under Program Files\Internet Explorer to see the executable. Feel free to make a shortcut and put it on the Start Menu, if you don't want Edge.

 

While I agree that DRM on Microsoft products is well implemented, it does not really server its purpose. Microsoft Product Activation can be bypassed very easily, and it does not stop piracy at all. What Microsoft really needs to do is the same that Valve did with Steam - instead of trying to make the cracked experience inferior, they made the genuine experience superior. That is the secret to good DRM and reducing piracy.

Steam DRM is awful in reality. It is only "good", and got praised, because it was miles better than the desperate crap from publishers. There is no perfect DRM. All you can do is make it harder to break. But you need to balance this out. It needs to be a balance between locked down too much and consumers not happy, and too lose, and it is like nothing.

I think Microsoft has a decent balance with Windows DRM. People that hack the DRM system will hack it regardless, and those whom pirate it, will do so. But it strong enough to block most people to buy 1 copy and install it on 20 computers, and make it is harder for shoddy small computer makers to build and sale computers with pirated copies of Windows.

You can bet that with Windows 10 being set to force auto-update, that Microsoft will play around changing and tweaking the DRM system small enough to not affect anything to legit users, but break many hacks used. While they can be probably easy to work around, and make a new system to by-pass it, it will make it annoying for those who don't have a legit copy. I won't be surprised if that have 6 or 8 DRM system tweak to switch between every couple of months, and cycle through them, or something a like, just so that people running a non legit copy have to cycle through their DRM, and eventually get annoyed and just buy it, for most at least.

I thought that you have been able to side-load apps into windows since 8.0?

Yes. But it was a pain to enable it.

And I think you needed Visual Studio and stuff, although I don't recall correctly.