Microsoft Store

The Microsoft Store helps you to find, download, and buy apps and games, plus digital movies and TV shows.

Get to know the Microsoft Store

The Microsoft Store—which is often simply referred to as the Store or the Store app—has been significantly streamlined for Windows 11. It provides top-level access to apps, games, and movies and TV show content via its navigation bar, plus your library of previously downloaded and purchased content.

Navigation is mostly obvious, and a small arrow-shaped Back button will appear in the upper-left corner of the app window so that you can go back to previous screens.

The Apps section in the Store lets you browse the available apps, of course.

And each item it offers has its own page.

The Microsoft Store also offers integrated search functionality that is accessible from any page in the app.

Finally, the Library view is used to view the apps, games, and movies and TV shows that are in the library associated with your Microsoft account—meaning content that you’ve previously downloaded or purchased—and to update installed apps and games.

In this chapter, we focus only on apps and games. The purchasing of movies and TV shows is discussed in the Movies & TV chapter.

Before you start

Before you download any apps or games, there are a few things you should configure and consider.

Manage your account and payment options

First, spend a few moments to ensure that the Store is set up correctly for your account and whatever payment method(s) you prefer to use for paid apps and other content. That way, you won’t need to hunt around for credit card or other payment information the first (or next) time you want to buy something.

You configure this information with the Microsoft account website at account.microsoft.com. Once signed in, navigate to Payments & billing > Payment options.

You can also find a link to this part of the site from within the Store app: Select Profile (your account picture) and then choose “Payment options” from the drop-down menu that appears.

From that web page, you can create, delete, and manage payment options tied to your Microsoft account. These include credit and debit cards, a Microsoft gift card account balance, mobile billing through your wireless carrier, and PayPal.

If you do get a Microsoft gift card, you can redeem the code it contains on the web at
account.microsoft.com/billing/redeem. Or, you can use the Store app in Windows: navigate to Profile > “Redeem code or gift cards”.

Manage your connected PCs and devices

Microsoft lets you download Store apps and games to up to 10 Windows PCs at once. You can manage the list of those PCs from the Microsoft account website as well: just select the “Devices” link at the top.

If you see any out-of-date PCs in this list, you can remove them by selecting the appropriate “Remove device” link.

Consider how you will use the Microsoft Store

As discussed in App Basics, Windows 11 is configured to let users install apps from anywhere by default: the web, an optical disc, or the Microsoft Store. And you can optionally configure the system to behave differently, by recommending Store apps or warning you when you try to download apps from outside the Store.

This may seem controlling on Microsoft’s part, but there are advantages to using Store apps when possible, even when the same apps might be available from elsewhere as well. For example, Microsoft Store apps provide consistent and simple install experiences and are automatically kept up-to-date by the Store. And many Microsoft Store apps are more secure, more reliable, and less likely to cause performance issues than non-Store apps.

There are also some important advantages for paid apps: because of Microsoft’s liberal licensing policies, all Store apps can be used on 10 different PCs at the same time, and you never need to worry about authorizing and deauthorizing PCs as you sometimes do with web-acquired software. For example, if you purchase Photoshop Elements directly from Adobe, you can only install it on two PCs at once, and you have to manually deauthorize PCs when you want to move the license to a new PC. If you forget, you’ll find yourself in a customer service chat or on the phone.

We understand that many technical readers will be dismissive of the Microsoft Store and might continue installing apps from the web as they have for years. But we recommend adopting a strategy in which you download all of the apps you can from the Store and only turn to the web when an app isn’t available there. This is much more realistic today than when the Store debuted as part of Windows 8 in 2012: what was once a wasteland is now a reliable source of high-quality apps and games.

Find and install apps and games

The Microsoft Store offers a variety of ways to find and install apps and games. This process will be obvious to anyone who has used a mobile app store in the past decade. That said, there are a few unique items of interest related to acquiring apps and games from the Microsoft Store.

Find an app or game after you’ve downloaded it

Windows 11 places recently installed apps and games in the Recommended section in the Start menu by default.

And any app or game you’ve installed from the Microsoft Store will appear in the Start menu’s All apps list as well.

Find apps and games you’ve already purchased or downloaded

The Store app helps you find the apps, games, and other content you’ve already purchased. This makes it relatively easy to find, download, and install them again. This can be useful if you’ve received a new PC or have uninstalled an app and now wish to get it back.

To see this list, open the Store app and select Library in the navigation pane.

The default view is filtered to display only those apps and games that are installed on this PC. To see your entire library, select “Sort and filter” and de-select “Show installed products only.” Optionally, you may also want to use the “Sort of filter” button to change the sorting to be alphabetical (“by name”).

To download and install a previous purchase or download, select the Download button next to that item.

Where did it go?

Previous Microsoft Store app designs allowed you to hide individual apps, games, and content so that they would not appear in your library list. This capability is no longer available.

Purchase an app or game

Downloading and installing a free app or game is simple enough. But purchasing a paid app or game requires a few more steps. You will be prompted to sign in —using your password or a Windows Hello-based authentication action—and then asked to confirm which payment method you prefer to use.

From there, the download process proceeds normally.

If you’d like to streamline the app purchase process by removing the password requirement, you can do so in Store settings, which is accessed by selecting Profile > “App settings”. We do not recommend making this change: It’s always a good idea to carefully consider any purchase, and this authentication prompt will provide the necessary pause.

Make an in-app purchase

Some free apps—especially games—offer in-app purchases, which is one way for developers to monetize their work without requiring an upfront, one-time payment. (Another approach is to provide in-app advertising.) The types of in-app purchases you’ll see will vary from app to app, but the purchase process is the same. Like any Store purchase, you will need to sign in and choose a payment method.

Update apps

By default, the Microsoft Store will automatically keep every Store app on your PC up to date, downloading and installing updates in the background as they appear. We think this behavior is desirable and beneficial for most users, and we don’t recommend changing it.

However, some may wish to monitor app updates and manually install these updates when they become available. To do so, open Store settings (Profile > “App settings”). At the top of this page, you will see an option, “App updates.” If you wish to disable automatic app updates for some reason, change this to Off.

You can also manually check for app updates: Open Library and then select the “Get updates” button.