Old Windows? No Microsoft Store for you!
Microsoft (MSFT) has announced that the Microsoft Store will cease to work for Windows 8.x devices.
Killing off the Microsoft Store for Windows 8.x? Sounds reasonable, right? After all this piece of garbage OS has not been supported for quite a while. Except that knowing MSFT, they might soon pull this off for people running previous versions of Windows 10 as well.
So perhaps in 2025 MSFT might no longer provide support for Windows 10 1909. Fair enough, perhaps. But then blocking access to the Microsoft Store? For what reason?
Normally I’d say “fair enough, just upgrade to the latest build” — except that MSFT in the past has dropped support for what it considers “old CPUs” in subsequent builds of the OS. So you buy a perfectly fine PC with a legit and supported Windows 10 installed, then in a few years you find out that you can no longer update to a new build, and subsequently, Microsoft Store might no longer work for you.
How justifiable is justified?
I find it very hard to accept MSFT’s reason’s to just drop support for a perfectly fine Intel-based CPU from one build to another. For instance I have a Core i7 DELL Laptop from 2011 with 32GB of RAM which is rock solid and FLIES even for today’s standards. It would be pretty shocking if all of a sudden I can no longer get updates or use the OS properly just because MSFT flicked a switch at their end — let alone not be able to access the Microsoft Store! I am of the opinion that this is all a gimmick to keep people switching to newer PCs (and keep the PC market fuelled).
Sure there are self-righteous buffoons out there who would just say “oh, change your PC already. It is too old. I change mine every Y years”. Fact is, what one do or do not do is their business alone. If a device has been working perfectly fine for an X amount of years, why the artificially imposed limitations on the hardware?
Linux is always an option but not a perfect one if you like playing games.
The plus point of Windows Store is that it gives customers a sense of security. Applications that want to be posted to the Store must go through Microsoft's censorship, this is the process of removing malicious and malicious apps to users.