4 ms·

This is completely unfounded and tinfoil hat levels of conspiracy. If they stripped Win32 out of Windows, it wouldn't only impact Steam, but Microsoft Office,

This is completely unfounded and tinfoil hat levels of conspiracy. If they stripped Win32 out of Windows, it wouldn't only impact Steam, but Microsoft Office, Visual Studio, Photoshop Suite, Chrome/Firefox, iTunes, their shiny new Linux tools, etc would also be out. This goes against the ethos of Microsoft. Criticise them all you wish, but they're absolutely obsessed with backwards compatibility and always have been. They know the ONLY reason Windows is popular is because you can throw in a piece of software you purchased in 1999 and it will "likely" still work. If they dropped Win32 entirely, then Windows is interchangeable with a Chromebook. Heck up until 64x one of their test cases was if Doom (released in 1993) still ran. They only stopped because 64x doesn't support 16 bit.

animal531 10y ago
But on the other hand Microsoft is quite a large company. The one development side is pulling heavily toward open source and freedom, but some of the other angles such as the store seem to be constricting. I imagine it all depends which side (internally) will come out on top.
pjmlp 10y ago
"Project Centennial: Bringing Existing Desktop Applications to the Universal Windows Platform" https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2016/B829 https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2016/B829
- RGamma 10y ago
  In that video they also say that sideloading can be done via double-click (no PowerShell cmdlets or whatever necessary like in Win8; not sure how certification/signing will play into this), and they also state that it'll be fine to monetize an UWP app on other stores than the Windows one. If they're actually honest with this and I haven't missed anything, UWP might well be the best thing that's ever happened to Windows.
  - pjmlp 10y ago
    I agree. On top of that I really like that WinRT is basically COM+ Runtime reborn and that Visual C++ finally feels like C++ Builder for GUI RAD tooling. And that .NET Native also got developed in the process.
doikor 10y ago
Hell even the windows explorer shell still uses Win32 even in windows 10. Win32 ain't going anywhere anytime soon. And with windows 10 they just expanded the amount of Win32 APIs that available for UWP apps. Now people are using them even in the UWP apps and now microsoft would somehow remove it? Also they just made side loading UWP apps easier by defaulting to the option to allow it (previously you had to go to control panel to enable it). Also stuff like this https://github.com/aL3891/AppxInstaller https://github.com/aL3891/AppxInstaller exist which make .msi installer for an .appx package.

animal531 10y ago

But on the other hand Microsoft is quite a large company. The one development side is pulling heavily toward open source and freedom, but some of the other angles such as the store seem to be constricting. I imagine it all depends which side (internally) will come out on top.

pjmlp 10y ago

"Project Centennial: Bringing Existing Desktop Applications to the Universal Windows Platform" https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2016/B829 https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2016/B829

RGamma 10y ago
In that video they also say that sideloading can be done via double-click (no PowerShell cmdlets or whatever necessary like in Win8; not sure how certification/signing will play into this), and they also state that it'll be fine to monetize an UWP app on other stores than the Windows one. If they're actually honest with this and I haven't missed anything, UWP might well be the best thing that's ever happened to Windows.
- pjmlp 10y ago
  I agree. On top of that I really like that WinRT is basically COM+ Runtime reborn and that Visual C++ finally feels like C++ Builder for GUI RAD tooling. And that .NET Native also got developed in the process.

doikor 10y ago

Hell even the windows explorer shell still uses Win32 even in windows 10. Win32 ain't going anywhere anytime soon. And with windows 10 they just expanded the amount of Win32 APIs that available for UWP apps. Now people are using them even in the UWP apps and now microsoft would somehow remove it? Also they just made side loading UWP apps easier by defaulting to the option to allow it (previously you had to go to control panel to enable it). Also stuff like this https://github.com/aL3891/AppxInstaller https://github.com/aL3891/AppxInstaller exist which make .msi installer for an .appx package.