Windows 10 is, for the most part, a very accomplished operating system. I have some problems with certain aspects of it, the OS search is a bad joke and the mishmash of old Windows UI elements and new is jarring, visually. But my real problem is with the dreadful Windows Store.
“Well” you’re saying “don’t use it then” and yes, that’s a pretty good idea. The problem comes when you want to play a game from Microsoft’s collection. I, for example, play Forza Horizon 3 and Gears of War 4 which both require you use the Windows Store.
The other day I checked in on both these games, both had broken themselves with no interference from me. Gears of War was listed as having been updated the previous day, but when I started it the program simply told me that the installation was damaged and I must reinstall. Bear in mind that Gears of War 4 is a massive 110GB installation for some reason, and you can see why this is irritating.
Still more troublesome though is the ongoing problem of error messages. The Windows Store tends not to offer any, so when my installs break I have to try and troubleshoot them. They wouldn't re-install, so I had to create new user accounts, delete folders, tweak registry settings. In the end I did something, and it worked. I can't tell you what I did, because I don't know. But take a look around online, and you'll see lots of frustrated users having lots of problems, and having to try many fixes to resolve them.
It’s not just this self-own that apps sometimes perform, it’s the whole way the Windows Store is designed. Microsoft has tried to remove the need for users to decide where to put apps. This might suit many users, after all who cares about "c:Program Filespp" locations, most people just want the thing installed. But the lack of options are a burden for larger apps. I can’t have games stored on my boot SSD, even a 256GB drive will be filled by Windows and a couple of games like that massive Gears of War install, and the 60GB or so Forza needs.
So users can opt to move the app install drive, but that will change where all apps go. And you can’t opt for a subfolder either, so Windows just dumps all the files in the root with a selection of subfolders with incomprehensible names. It’s not a huge problem, but it’s an irritation. It all goes toward the problem that Microsoft has oversimplified the App Store, and made it tedious and annoying to use as well.
For smaller apps the Windows Store is a little more usable. Of course there are problems with the way Microsoft has pitched the store, mostly surrounding the desire to create “modern” apps that are horrible to use. Facebook, Twitter etc all have apps that are painful to use and don’t suit a high-end desktop or laptop computer. They’re basically mobile apps by design. But these apps are less troublesome in general. It tends to be the more traditional Windows apps, wrapped in this new store that seem to cause the problems.
With Microsoft’s plans to run Windows on ARM processors the Store is more important than ever. We need a way to have trusted apps, which are checked for malicious code, and that work across all of the hardware we run Windows on now, and in the future.
So come on Microsoft, you can do a lot better.
