Items tagged with Windows Store
Microsoft has been hard at work making Windows 10 more attractive to gamers than it already is, and much of its effort will be on display when its Creators Update rolls out next week (you can grab it now if you're feeling antsy). But while goodies like Game Mode and Beam support are on the horizon, Microsoft is drawing the line at emulators—they're no longer welcome in the Windows Store. The change in policy was noticed by NESbox, as its free Universal Emulator was pulled from the Windows Store. Before it was yanked, Windows 10 users could download the emulator and play ROMs for the NES, Super Nintendo, Nintendo Gameboy, Sega Genesis, and Sega Mega Drive. The nifty emulator supports keyboard...
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Back in late October, Microsoft announced the Windows 10 Creators Update, which has plenty of features aimed at consumers and business users alike. On the consumer side, the Creators Update focuses on 3D content creation, virtual reality, gaming performance and streaming, as well as improving social interactions online. But since we here at HotHardware are gamers at heart, we payed particular attention to a WinHEC session relating to graphics and gaming that was held last week. Microsoft described how it is focusing on the following technologies with the Windows 10 Creators Update to improve PC gaming performance and the user experience for users: Windows Display Driver Module (WDDM) 2.2 Wide...
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Are you looking for something to do this weekend? Maybe you're a New England Patriots fan (like this editor), in which case your favorite football team is on a bye week. Well, Microsoft has your back—the Forza Horizon 3 demo for Windows 10 is finally available to download for free from the Windows Store, provided you have the requisite hardware to get behind the wheel. The minimum system requirements call for an Intel Core i5-3570 processor clocked at 3.4GHz, 8GB of RAM, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti or AMD Radeon R7 250X graphics card with 2GB of memory, and Windows 10. Microsoft recommends bumping up to an Intel Core i7-3870 CPU clocked at 3.6GHz paired with a GeForce GTX 970 or GTX 1060 if...
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Microsoft hasn’t just come under fire with regards to privacy in Windows 10; it has also taken flak for new policy shifts in the operating system regarding updates. Microsoft first irked Windows 10 Home users when it was revealed that customers couldn’t opt-out of Windows Updates (including OS updates and hardware drivers) — the operating system downloads and installs the updates on its own terms. This policy lead to “reboot hell” for some early adopters of Windows 10. Microsoft next ticked off users — although to a lesser extent — with forced Windows Store app updates for Windows Home users. Although we understand Microsoft’s intentions with both policies (namely to aid in quickly getting critical...
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To say that we’re excited about Windows 10 would be putting it lightly. After hitting a pothole with Windows 8, Microsoft is looking forward to smoother roads ahead with its successor. When Windows 10 was officially announced in late January, we were given a few details on Microsoft’s new unified application platform that will give us universal apps that work across PC, smartphone, tablet, and Xbox platforms. Today, Microsoft has let it slide that it is taking things a step further with a single, unified Store in Windows 10. That means that the new Store will serve not only as a home for apps, but also as a repository for music, movies, and TV shows. The new Store Beta, which rolls out to customers...
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We're still several months removed from spring time, but that didn't stop Microsoft from giving its Windows Store a good cleaning -- a much needed one, we might add -- as it swept away more than 1,500 crummy apps that fall afoul of the company's certification process in one way or another. More app removals could be forthcoming as Microsoft continues to review both its Windows Store and Windows Phone Store. As we noted last week, the Windows Store has become a convoluted mess cluttered with bogus apps trying to hitch a ride on the coattails of legitimate programs. For example, searching for Mozilla's free Firefox browser would bring up several fakes, including ones that cost money. Depending...
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Microsoft has reason to celebrate today, as its Windows Store is now filled with over 100,000 Windows 8 apps. It's an important milestone en route to a much larger goal of building out a rich ecosystem, and while it's true Apple and Google have Microsoft beat in the apps department, the Redmond outfit reached the 100,000 mark much faster than the competition. It took a mere eight months to flesh out the Windows Store with 100,000 apps, versus two years for Google to reach the same goal after opening the Android Market (now called Google Play) and one and a half years for Apple to get there. Not only that, but the Windows Store has doubled the number of apps in just the past three months alone....
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A software platform is only as good as its apps, and towards that end, Microsoft's Windows Store now boasts over 50,000 of them. There are 50,341 at the time of this writing, according to MetroStore Scanner, a site that makes Windows Store apps easily searchable from the Web. The number of apps is steadily rising, having more than doubled since the end of November, and increasing from a little more than 44,000 apps a month ago. As we head into summer, the pace of new apps to hit the Windows Store might accelerate even further. How so? Microsoft recently announced a "Keep the Cash" campaign that, as of March 8th, started paying developers $100 for each app they develop for Windows 8 or Windows...
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For Windows 8 to be successful, it needs a robust selection of apps. The very nature of Windows 8 demands it. As Microsoft is quick to point out time and again, its new operating system is Windows re-imagined, and a big part of the re-imagining is the Windows Store. It's a place where desktop and Surface users can go and download apps for easy access via the touch interface. Ironically enough, filling the Windows Store with apps may be more difficult than it needs to be. We don't want to make a mountain out of what might really be just a mole hill, but at least one developer is frustrated with Microsoft's app submission processor. Developer Jeffrey Harmon posted his ordeal in great detail, describing...
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