6 ms·

It's much more expensive on Windows side of things. DigiCert and Sectigo are now in the $700--$1000 range per year for regular OV code signing certificate. Mic

by grujicd 5mo ago

It's much more expensive on Windows side of things. DigiCert and Sectigo are now in the $700--$1000 range per year for regular OV code signing certificate. Microsoft has it's own Azure Artifact Signing which is comparable to Apple yearly cost (give or take), but since a month ago installers signed with it often display SmartScreen warnings [1]. Even though Microsoft controls both pieces! Store option is not free for organizations (although it's a one-time setup fee), but the worse thing is it forces you to its simplified licensing/trial model, typically not compatible with B2B software where paid upgrades, yearly support contracts, controlled updates, extended trials are used. [1] https://github.com/Azure/artifact-signing-action/issues/128#issue-4220835394 https://github.com/Azure/artifact-signing-action/issues/128#...

hermitcrab 5mo ago
Would be interested to hear a bit more about selling commercial software through the MS App Store. My Easy Data Transform software has a free trial (7 days, do not have to be consecutive) and is a one-time fee of $99 to buy. How would that work?
- grujicd 5mo ago
  Hah, since 3 days ago it's now free registrations even for companies. [1] I strongly suspect that problems with SmartScreen are a not so subtle way to push us to the Store. Good thing is you don't have to use their ecommerce and pay anything per license. But I don't know whether we can just put trial there and keep existing trial and licensing logic on our own? For me the problem would also be automatic updates, as I don't want all users of v5 to be automatically upgraded to v6. Perhaps separate listings for major versions are the way to go, at least in my case. Since it's now a free registration I just might try it, sometimes it's faster to do it than to go through documentation to find out whether it's possible or not. [1] https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2026/05/07/publish-to-microsoft-store-as-a-company-now-with-free-registration-and-faster-onboarding/ https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2026/05/07/publis...
  - hermitcrab 5mo ago
    Sounds worth investigating.

by grujicd 5mo ago

hermitcrab 5mo ago

Would be interested to hear a bit more about selling commercial software through the MS App Store. My Easy Data Transform software has a free trial (7 days, do not have to be consecutive) and is a one-time fee of $99 to buy. How would that work?

grujicd 5mo ago
Hah, since 3 days ago it's now free registrations even for companies. [1] I strongly suspect that problems with SmartScreen are a not so subtle way to push us to the Store. Good thing is you don't have to use their ecommerce and pay anything per license. But I don't know whether we can just put trial there and keep existing trial and licensing logic on our own? For me the problem would also be automatic updates, as I don't want all users of v5 to be automatically upgraded to v6. Perhaps separate listings for major versions are the way to go, at least in my case. Since it's now a free registration I just might try it, sometimes it's faster to do it than to go through documentation to find out whether it's possible or not. [1] https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2026/05/07/publish-to-microsoft-store-as-a-company-now-with-free-registration-and-faster-onboarding/ https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2026/05/07/publis...
- hermitcrab 5mo ago
  Sounds worth investigating.