Microsoft no Longer accept new app submissions to the Windows 8/8.1 Store

[AlTech]

Microsoft is preparing to kill the Windows 8/8.1 Store.

 

The company has put an end of life for new application submissions of November this year and will be blocking existing apps from getting updated past July 1st 2023.

 

Quote

Windows 8.1 dropped out of mainstream support earlier this year, entering the five-year extended support period in which it receives only security fixes. However, Microsoft is still accepting new application submissions to the Windows 8 Store. Submissions for new Windows Phone 8 apps are also currently accepted.

Today, Microsoft announced that this is soon coming to an end. After October 31, new applications will no longer be accepted for distribution through the store.

Updates to existing applications will continue to be supported. However, there's now an end date for these, too: from July 1, 2023, Microsoft will cease to distribute any updates for Windows 8.1 Store applications. The deadline for Windows Phone 8 is sooner: updates for those apps will end on July 1, 2019.

 

This isn't surprising given that no new devices run Windows 8 and the store is still alive for now to maintain compatibility with a small minority of Windows devices still using Windows 8 or 8.1

 

Source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/08/microsoft-prepares-to-kill-the-windows-8-store-no-new-apps-from-november/

Edited August 24, 2018 by GoodBytes
Chasnge clickbait title

[Ryujin2003]

Windows 8 should have been put out of it's misery on day one of release.

 

Edit: I do find it very weird today Windows is killing off everything to push users into Windows 10. No more choices? That part is kinda irritating. I don't really understand that part. Granted there's still plenty of time for support.

 

But I don't think Windows 8 was ever really that popular was it?

[voiha]

So we gonna have one Windows OS left in the face of Windows 10, which by their claim will be their last OS product...cool

[TetraSky]

Not a big loss.
The OS itself will still be usable without the store, it will just go back to being like every version of Windows before it, just with a terrible interface and overall bad design.

I'm still mad at how it was touted as an OS for touchscreen devices, yet the OnScreen keyboard didn't even popup automatically like it would've on Android/iOS, you had to press the Keyboard button in the buttom right corner whenever you wanted to write something, even in "tablet mode"... I don't know if they fixed that overtime, since I upgraded my Win8.1 tablet to Windows 10 as soon as it was possible to do so. (that issue was "fixed" in Windows 10 during the Insider beta builds and worked perfectly fine at release)

[Sauron]

There was a dedicated store? I thought they had just merged it with UWP...

2 hours ago, Ryujin2003 said:

Windows 8 should have been put out of it's misery on day one of release.

Yes.

2 hours ago, Ryujin2003 said:

Edit: I do find it very weird today Windows is killing off everything to push users into Windows 10. No more choices? That part is kinda irritating. I don't really understand that part. Granted there's still plenty of time for support.

People don't ask Apple why they can't find a copy of don't support snow leopard in stores anymore. Sure, support should last long enough that you aren't forced to buy a new OS every time there's a new release, but legacy systems are not considered an "alternative" to the new ones. Granted, with things like vista and 8 microsoft has poisoned the well - they were so bad that prebuilt companies started giving the option to install the previous version; but those are supposed to be edge cases, not the norm.

 

Besides, it's been a while since windows 8 released, and windows 7 is almost 10 years old. I'd say support for them has extended far beyond the bare minimum. When windows 7 came out, did you complain that windows 2000 was no longer supported?

2 hours ago, Ryujin2003 said:

But I don't think Windows 8 was ever really that popular was it?

Indeed it wasn't, although its numbers got better once 8.1 came out and made it somewhat usable.

2 hours ago, voiha said:

So we gonna have one Windows OS left in the face of Windows 10, which by their claim will be their last OS product...cool

See above, there is always only one Windows OS. The rest is legacy support, not a different product to be sold as an alternative.

[jagdtigger]

9 minutes ago, voiha said:

So we gonna have one Windows OS left in the face of Windows 10, which by their claim will be their last OS product...cool

They only kill the store which does not matter anyway....

 

 

Meh, do anyone care about it? Store is just a "ghost town"....

[captain_to_fire]

3 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

yet the OnScreen keyboard didn't even popup automatically like it would've on Android/iOS, you had to press the Keyboard button in the buttom right corner whenever you wanted to write something, even in "tablet mode"

Actually, even with Windows 10 the touch keyboard can't be summoned by tapping input boxes instantaneously just like iOS and Android like inputting application forms. I still stand to what I've said years ago, Windows 10 is a shitty tablet OS compared to iOS until now.

[captain_to_fire]

8 minutes ago, Sauron said:

People don't ask Apple why they can't find a copy of snow leopard in stores anymore.

Though you can still buy one https://www.amazon.com/version-Leopard-computer-processor-required/dp/B001AMHWP8/

[Sauron]

7 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

Though you can still buy one https://www.amazon.com/version-Leopard-computer-processor-required/dp/B001AMHWP8/

Probably because they didn't sell very many physical copies

[TetraSky]

26 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

Actually, even with Windows 10 the touch keyboard can't be summoned by tapping input boxes instantaneously just like iOS and Android like inputting application forms. I still stand to what I've said years ago, Windows 10 is a shitty tablet OS compared to iOS until now.

It does, if you are in Tablet mode. But it doesn't work everywhere. 

I'm literally testing it out on my tablet right now to see if I was crazy, and it pop up by itself on any windows prompt, Vivaldi, Edge, Explorer window, Search, settings, etc...text field once I tap on one.
It doesn't popup automatically on things like the Command Prompt/PowerShell and  some legacy software.

[TacoSenpai]

31 minutes ago, Sauron said:

 Granted, with things like vista and 8 microsoft has poisoned the well - they were so bad that prebuilt companies started giving the option to install the previous version; but those are supposed to be edge cases, not the norm.

Vista gave me cancer.

[kting15]

1 hour ago, Sauron said:

Probably because they didn't sell very many physical copies

Looks like you can buy directly from apple too

 

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MC573Z/A/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard

[Sauron]

25 minutes ago, kting15 said:

Looks like you can buy directly from apple too

 

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MC573Z/A/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard

Whatever, that's beside the point.

[GoodBytes]

Assuming that I even had a device running Windows 8, I would honestly not care one bit, even if the Store disappears.

Windows 8 Metro framework was so limited (and broken) that no actual app could be made. Microsoft could not managed to make Office for it, let alone Skype, and all Metro apps where extremely basic.

[NumLock21]

It seems anything from MS is either abandon or has a extremely short lifespan.

[jagdtigger]

22 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

and all Metro apps where extremely basic.

AFAIK its the same for UWP if you compare them to their win32 counterparts....

[Sniperfox47]

18 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

The only issue I see, is people not being able to upgrade from Windows 8 to 8.1 (assuming a clean install or device recovery from OEM image backup) as that was through the Store. Assuming that download is also going to be turned off. I bet MS will be like: Upgrade to Windows 10 or buy a new device that can run Windows 10 or stick to Windows 8.0

Is that affected? Maybe I misread the article but my understanding is that they're just ending support for submissions from developers.

 

First new apps which nobody cares about anyways since at this point nobody is developing new apps on Windows 8.

 

Then for updates to existing apps. Hopefully exceptions will be made if major security patches are needed similar to Apple allowing Telegram to update.

 

From what I read nothing is changing on the end user side and all the apps will remain up for download.

 

[GoodBytes]

11 minutes ago, Sniperfox47 said:

Is that affected? Maybe I misread the article but my understanding is that they're just ending support for submissions from developers.

My mistake. I read too quickly as I was on the go. Got confused by the click-bait article title, as I read it diagonally. Will fix.

 

[Commodus]

2 hours ago, TetraSky said:

Not a big loss.
The OS itself will still be usable without the store, it will just go back to being like every version of Windows before it, just with a terrible interface and overall bad design.

I'm still mad at how it was touted as an OS for touchscreen devices, yet the OnScreen keyboard didn't even popup automatically like it would've on Android/iOS, you had to press the Keyboard button in the buttom right corner whenever you wanted to write something, even in "tablet mode"... I don't know if they fixed that overtime, since I upgraded my Win8.1 tablet to Windows 10 as soon as it was possible to do so. (that issue was "fixed" in Windows 10 during the Insider beta builds and worked perfectly fine at release)

Windows 8 was really the height of Ballmer's knee-jerk "do whatever Apple's doing, but without understanding how and why Apple does it" imitation phase.  He wanted Windows-based iPad rivals, but he neither made sure it was as intuitive as an iPad nor played to Windows' strengths (that is, taking full advantage of the mouse and keyboard when present).

 

The funny thing is that the Windows PC market's ongoing decline basically started with the launch of Windows 8.  Microsoft not only managed to alienate both conservative and progressive users, it directly contributed to the end of decades of PC growth.  (The PC market was already in trouble due to the rise of smartphones, but this helped push it over the edge.)

[Castdeath97]

The fact that I keep forgetting that windows 8 even existed should say enough about it. 

[AlTech]

17 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

My mistake. I read too quickly as I was on the go. Got confused by the click-bait article title, as I read it diagonally. Will fix.

 

Why was the title of the thread changed? It's not clickbait. The Windows 8 Store is very much dead at this point.

[GoodBytes]

13 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Why was the title of the thread changed? It's not clickbait. The Windows 8 Store is very much dead at this point.

Your opinion is not fact

[ScratchCat]

4 hours ago, voiha said:

So we gonna have one Windows OS left in the face of Windows 10, which by their claim will be their last OS product...cool

Time to back Steam Windows Emulator...

4 hours ago, TetraSky said:

Not a big loss.
The OS itself will still be usable without the store, it will just go back to being like every version of Windows before it, just with a terrible interface and overall bad design.

I'm still mad at how it was touted as an OS for touchscreen devices, yet the OnScreen keyboard didn't even popup automatically like it would've on Android/iOS, you had to press the Keyboard button in the buttom right corner whenever you wanted to write something, even in "tablet mode"... I don't know if they fixed that overtime, since I upgraded my Win8.1 tablet to Windows 10 as soon as it was possible to do so. (that issue was "fixed" in Windows 10 during the Insider beta builds and worked perfectly fine at release)

From my experience the keyboard automatically appears in most apps, even non Microsoft ones such as Firefox. Sometimes (infrequently) it breaks and is stuck in caps or just keeps closing but killing the process fixes that.

4 hours ago, LordOTaco said:

Vista gave me cancer.

At least Vista cancer crashes randomly requiring so it isn't that bad if you don't force restart.

1 hour ago, GoodBytes said:

Your opinion is not fact

The store website says that Reader is available for 32bit PCs while the app says it is 64bit only. The app still updated even though it wasn't compatible. Even after filing multiple issues these problems are still broken so I would be confident to say supplying resources to the store is not their greatest priority anymore.

[GoodBytes]

1 hour ago, ScratchCat said:

The store website says that Reader is available for 32bit PCs while the app says it is 64bit only. The app still updated even though it wasn't compatible. Even after filing multiple issues these problems are still broken so I would be confident to say supplying resources to the store is not their greatest priority anymore.

If you load the Store and download things, it is then still there. If the store would be shutdown, that means it won't load.

[mynameisjuan]

6 hours ago, Ryujin2003 said:

Windows 8 should have been put out of it's misery on day one of release.

8? Yes

 

But 8.1 was the shit.