Microsoft Store apps install quicker now and with extra Telemetry
Microsoft launched Microsoft Store installers for web over the weekend to improve Microsoft Store application installs.
The feature improves the process of downloading and installing apps like Microsoft PC Manager from the Microsoft Store website, but it comes with a downside as well.
Microsoft launched a new Microsoft Store website for Windows 10 and 11 back in 2022, and has been working on the website ever since.
To better understand the benefits that the new method offers, it is necessary to summarize previous installations from the store.
The old and new way of downloading apps from the Microsoft Store
There are two ways to browse the Microsoft Store: via the official website or the Microsoft Store app. The new method improves installations via the official website.
Here is the old process:
- The user clicks on the install button on the Microsoft Store website.
- The browser displays a "Open Microsoft Store" prompt.
- A click on the Open Microsoft Store button displays the actual installation prompt.
- A click on the install button starts the download and installation of the app.
The new way is simpler. A click on the install button on the website downloads an executable file that needs to be run to install the app on the device.
Microsoft's reasoning for making the change
Microsoft outlines the advantages of the new installation routine on Twitter:
- Installation process requires two clicks now, down from three.
- The process is quicker.
- Downloads work, even if the Store is removed on the device, or out of date.
- Parallel installations supported.
Microsoft says that the new method led to a 12% increase in installations and a 54% increase in application launches after installation.
What Microsoft fails to mention
Not everyone is happy with the change Rafael Rivera, developer of EarTrumpet, criticized Microsoft's decision.
He had this to say about the change on Twitter: "The Microsoft Store team has started quietly wrapping apps, like EarTrumpet, with some malware-looking .NET executable wrapper (with my app's name of course) chock full of telemetry and other code. They also target netfx 4.7.2 when my app targets netfx 4.6.2, wtf?"
According to Rivera, Microsoft's wrapper is using Netfx 4.7.2, even if the actual app is using a different Netfx version. For Microsoft, use of Netfx 4.7.2 is all about support. All supported versions of Windows support it, and that is why it is used.
More problematic from a user point of view is that Microsoft's wrapper includes telemetry components.
Closing Words
It is unclear at this point whether the collecting of Telemetry is now different. The previous method directed installs to Microsoft's Store, which gave Microsoft opportunity to collect Telemetry as well.
For users, it is important to understand that the delivered executable file is not the actual application that they want to download. It is a wrapper that always has the same size of 703 kilobytes. Execution of this wrapper starts the download of the actual application and its installation.
Do you download apps from Microsoft's Store?
Some apps can only be installed by using the Store. Photoscape X and Animotica – Movie Maker & Video Editor for example. These are imo good apps – even the free versions. Especially for beginners in image and video editing. But yes it is a pity that developers don’t offer them outside of the Store.
app stores are just one thing. a tool to move control from the user and developer to the vendor.
no one ever needed them, -comfort, safety, etc all the typical b/s bingo excuses for the real deal: Control!
but thanks to lazy customers who gets bribed by comfort, we have this 1984 situation. the masses never said no and slice by salamislice, the big companies moved the boundaries of what goes and nogos. Now nearly every MS component has a telemetry part.
Want to include MS Edge webview2 runtime into your product?
Feel happy to inform your users that your product has spyware included.
Use Winget. No need to use any of those awful stores that will someday become a turd garden similar to Apple’s.
I can only recommend “Dictionary” by Farlex. Pro version is worth it.
Having said that, Microsoft’s Store is a prime example of inutility and incompetence.
I don’t ever feel the need to use the App Store .
What is exactly stopping the developer of eartrumpt from removing his application from the MS store and offering it as a standalone product without the need of the Windows Store altogether or at least offering it on github or something similar to the way the developer of WindowTop does.
I mean if he didn’t see how scummy Microsoft store was before this then he was obviously not looking or did not care at all.
I think this particular app is offered on chocolatey as for the rest of what is up there then it is no big loss. If the MS store were to shutdown tomorrow it wouldn’t be a huge loss and would likely just force developers to do better.
From its very inception I have struggled to see the point of Windows store apps. Please explain what the benefit is other than being a lazy developer that cannot be bothered to host their own website or use one of the available gits or other options.
I see this as another pathetic attempt by Microsoft to monetize Windows further and create an ecosystem that is quite frankly too late and completely unnecessary at all.
P.S. Nobody cares about the Surface device or other such poor attempts from similar companies (google and chromeOS) to replace things that are perfectly fine and vastly more powerful and useful.
Nadella is a rubbish CEO but Microsoft started going down this path long before.
As bad as Longhorn was it is and was better than the nightmares we have endured since after Window 7.
ReactOS needs a huge boost of developers and supporters for it to be truly useful. They at least need to get to the point where they are able to perform as close to Windows 7 as possible then build upon that to surpass Microsoft themselves which is a huge ask more than that we need people to actually use and support it.
Linux is fine but at the same time it is not. For me its like comparing SMPlayer/MPV/Mplayer to MPC-HC/MPC-BE or many of the other media players available to windows.
It may be good but it requires lots of configuration and even then it is not as good in feel and occasionally there are odd bugs that are inexplicable that you need to address or small things… lets call them quirks you need to compromise on.
Half of the MPV front ends are abysmal at best but I digress and that is another issue altogether but typically part of the problem to going to Linux as an OS.
I think one advantage to having a Microsoft Store was supposed to be, essentially, that Microsoft would at minimum be reviewing and scanning the apps and app updates in their store for known malware code and the like (At least, one would hope that’s the case). This could be advantageous (in theory) relative to installing the same app from a random website where there’s no one really regularly reviewing the app code other than it’s developer(s) and eventually any companies that might later acquire the the app and may be less trustworthy than the original developer.
The second advantage that was sort of implied is that people are used to the app store model from their phones and other devices now and might find a similar environment on a PC easier to navigate. A lot of people under 35 or 40 had smartphones before they had traditional computers, and are sort of smartphone native.
My personal preference is download Windows apps from websites the same way I’ve always done it. I don’t visit the Microsoft Store. Some preinstalled stuff like the Calculator app remains and may be getting managed by the Microsoft Store in the background. I have no idea. I had to actually run a search just now to see if I even had the Microsoft Store installed.
I get the point of the concept, but I don’t know that I like the idea as Microsoft as a software gatekeeper, and, regardless, it won’t work without buy-in from the other major software providers where they basically say “This is the Windows version of our program. You must get it from the Windows Store. No installation files will be released.”, which major software providers have no incentive to do given that software stores usually take a percentage of their revenue and, whether or not the Microsoft Store currently does that, it could do it in the future. I’m not even sure Microsoft Office releases *solely* through the Microsoft Store (I would imagine that it’s in there, but also available from the web as an x86 file).
John:
I think one advantage to having a Microsoft Store was supposed to be, essentially, that Microsoft would at minimum be reviewing and scanning the apps and app updates in their store for known malware code and the like (At least, one would hope that’s the case). This could be advantageous (in theory) relative to installing the same app from a random website where there’s no one really regularly reviewing the app code other than it’s developer(s) and eventually any companies that might later acquire the the app and may be less trustworthy than the original developer.
Mystique reply:
I imagine this is the same thing that Google preaches too which as we know is purely a reactionary tale as there is plenty of malware in the Chrome webstore just as I am sure there are at the very least terrible and poorly made products on the webstore if not outright malware. Just like open source software it is a false sense of security but everything comes with an inherit risk but we of course are better to do our due diligence before installing anything regardless if it is hosted on the MS store or on some sort of git.
John:
The second advantage that was sort of implied is that people are used to the app store model from their phones and other devices now and might find a similar environment on a PC easier to navigate. A lot of people under 35 or 40 had smartphones before they had traditional computers, and are sort of smartphone native.
Mystique reply:
So like Google then? May this was part of the plan that perished along with the Windows phone and Zune. I understand what you are say, it was basically Microsofts attempt to create their own walled garden which absolutely nobody wanted or asked for but as you know these walled gardens are to the benefit of the company only to create dominance and absolute control.
John:
My personal preference is download Windows apps from websites the same way I’ve always done it. I don’t visit the Microsoft Store. Some preinstalled stuff like the Calculator app remains and may be getting managed by the Microsoft Store in the background. I have no idea. I had to actually run a search just now to see if I even had the Microsoft Store installed.
Mystique reply:
Yep, I feel the same way and do not visit the Microsoft store at all either. I despise the the Calculator app and would recommend Qalculator or Calculator Classic which is your old windows 7 version of calculator which was vastly superior and loaded up quicker too without feeling janky too.
John:
I get the point of the concept, but I don’t know that I like the idea as Microsoft as a software gatekeeper, and, regardless, it won’t work without buy-in from the other major software providers where they basically say “This is the Windows version of our program. You must get it from the Windows Store. No installation files will be released.”, which major software providers have no incentive to do given that software stores usually take a percentage of their revenue and, whether or not the Microsoft Store currently does that, it could do it in the future. I’m not even sure Microsoft Office releases *solely* through the Microsoft Store (I would imagine that it’s in there, but also available from the web as an x86 file).
Mystique reply:
There is virtually no incentive apart from perhaps exposure if you are a small time developer with a novel idea but even that is a huge leap because I doubt anyone really uses the MS store. I mean one minute Microsoft like every other company that has gone down this path wants us to believe that the common user has absolutely no idea what they are doing on their computer and just look at their email only an casually browse the internet yet we are supposed to believe that they would go out of their way visit the MS store and absolutely know what EarTrumpet is for and how they can benefit from it and then choose to install it from the MS store? Yeah, I don’t see it!
For the record EarTrumpt is a great idea and obviously something that had to be created due to the complete lack of intelligence on Microsoft’s behalf when it came to their OS.
I would also like to add that Microsoft likes to steal other people’s idea’s and work and then add a watered down and terrible version of their own somehow.
Microsoft are just terrible, they have fired a lot of people over the years and basically have shifted over the quality/beta testing to you the end user.
As I have said before Microsoft are better off making Windows open source at this point and focusing on their corporate sector and then perhaps looking at creating a decent store without all the analytics/ telemetry (aka spyware). Windows should not have any real bloat at all and perhaps upon installation or first startup prompt you to install a Microsoft pack which can have various levels of choices that would essentially bring it to how it is today (vomit) or include other packs some of which could cost money too, They could even offer further choices to customize said packs.
At this point Nadella has to go as Microsoft is drifting further and further away from the point of redemption. I have absolute no doubt their next OS will be just as bad if not worse.
I’ve download exactly 1 app from the M$ store. Power Start Menu. I use it to hide the ‘reccomended’ section from the start menu (win 11).
It’s the only start menu customization app for win 11 I know of that M$ doesn’t break regularly.
I believe it is extortion to be forced to pay to hide reccomendations (advertisments) but in this case it’s a one time fee of $5 so I just gave up and paid instead of fighting.
Whenever you think that Microsoft has hit peak scumbaggry they outdo themselves. Well done, Nadella.
Simple solution is to remove all MS Store apps currently installed and never install another one. If this eventually becomes impossible to do, then back up all data, install a Linux distro and never look back.
Ever since Satya Nadella became CEO of Microsoft, things have been going downhill for the end users.
When I was still on Windows, I could even remove the Store app itself and Edge, you could even go into the folder WindowsApps and use IOBit Unlocker and Take Ownership to get full access to the folders of apps and use Shift+Del to get rid of a lot more of their useless disgusting apps.
Ultimately, I decided that using Windows is too taxing mentally, because this cat-and-mouse game will never end and moved to Linux.
The only good thing about Windows 11 is that it has rounded corners and is less ugly than Windows 10, but it has even less freedom. They removed the option to set up default programs with a few clicks, now you have to waste 20 minutes to click each format and associate it with a certain program.
On Linux you can set your default programs in a few clicks, you can change system fonts, easily install 3rd party thenes and the system already comes with 5-6 different themes pre-installed. Actually, on Linux the freedom to change themes feels like it was with the Windows Classic theme – where you could set fonts and colors for each element, but Microsoft being filthy communists like their government remove more and more freedom and people are too stupid, fanboy and lazy to even notice.
I agree, Nadella has been the worst CEO ever, a complete plague for the users.
That may be–I don’t know much about Nadella. I do, however, watch the ticker MSFT and watch certain stocks. MSFT will report earnings on Thursday after the close, and I suspect a solid quarter, which means buy a share of MSFT before the close or after the earnings report and make around $50.00.
Businesses need to please shareholders first; then, they can work on pleasing users/customers. Nadella is definitely pleasing Wall Street. Maybe Thursday will be a wreck, but I think not.
If an investor had purchased $1,000 of MSFT one year ago from the 25th, he/she would have $1,408.11–that’s 40%! I’d say Nadella is doing the most important part of his job quite well.
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/microsoft-earnings-preview-stock-price-target-ai-azure-bofa-msft-2024-4?op=1
@VioletMoon
The problem with this is that apart from financial support Shareholders largely do very little to nothing. I suspect that very few of them actually are Microsoft employee’s or actual frontline employee’s that code. All people like Nadella do is create friction, contempt and resentment in the workplace not to mention the consumers. It’s essentially a house of cards. I worked at a company like this before and the staff absolutely knew the score as well as the regular clients/customers.
When clowns like Nadella walk they get the golden handshake for proving to be able to take advantage of the customers/clients and staff thus creating a blueprint for how to make money in a grossly terrible way which of course favors shareholders and the executives more than anyone or anything else.
As we all know Shareholders are greedy and always want more so things never improve for the best. The only time Shareholder’s advocate for improvements is when their stocks fall and at that point they just stamp their feet like a petulent child meanwhile smooth brains like Nadella and his partners are so ensconsed in their own shit that they are simply incapable of improving things beyond using corporate trickery to and more negativity to squeeze a few more dollars out of their staff and product.
Clowns like Nadella are lauded over these days but essentially do nothing but damage over the long term.
Btw the company that I once worked for are failing at an astronomical rate and are at the brink of complete failure. I guess they ran out of options/ideas from their limited bag of corporate tricks. Laughable really.
Is Microsoft at the brink of failure yet? certainly not but I absolutely bet that the workplace morale on the ground floor is miserable. Windows has garnered huge criticism over the years and very minimal positive regards so we all know what that is like here.
At best if one wishes to be a part of the scumbaggery and perhaps earn a quick buck then shares in Microsoft might be the way to go but don’t expect there to be any real safety in a house of cards or become rich from buying some share in Microsoft whilst it is being driven by scumbag like this.
Btw I vaguely recall his name coming up in regards to Starbucks at one point which does not surprise me in the least.
I’d rather switch to ReactOS in its current state than run an app from Microsoft’s Store. Never did, never will.