Ask Paul: May 10 (Premium) (Updated)

Happy Friday! And welcome to the post-Build hangover edition of Ask Paul.

UPDATE: Apologies: I inadvertently left off some questions when I originally posted this on Friday. My mistake. I've added the four missing questions to the top. ---Paul
Future Surface Pro
briantlewis asks:

Surface Pro with USB-C all around. Inevitable or a booze-induced haze?

Inevitable, as is Thunderbolt 3 support. I’m surprised Surface Pro 5 didn’t have both USB-A and USB-C.
The future of UWP
Corey_McCowan asks:

With Build wrapped up, I feel like there is an argument in the Microsoft world of whether UWP is dead or alive. It appears from what I have seen that its more like the initial idea of UWP is dead and it has instead evolved into something else. I see parallels to Microsoft's comment of we will go where our users are. In this case, they are going where the developers are. We can see this with moving UWP components back to win32 and embracing PWA. So does it matter if UWP is actually dead or is it just semantics especially if Microsoft starts to containerize everything to allow it to run everywhere?

Yes, it still matters. But I’ve learned from a highly-placed source since returning home from Build that UWP is literally dead. So, my educated guess about the platform based on the evidence is correct: Microsoft will not invest further in UWP and will no advance this platform.

Additionally, what do you think about the store evolving to include everything that can run in Windows from PWA's to win32 apps to maybe Android Apps?

Not sure about Android apps, but the Store will expand to include more types of apps, yes. And Microsoft will allow apps that were packaged for the Store to be distributed to users from outside of the Store as well. This doesn’t mean the Store is “dead,” but it does mean that it is less essential going forward, as I openly wondered about recently. As it turns out, users on Windows expect to install apps from the web, not from a Store. The opposite is true on mobile.
Lite OS
Eric_Rasmussen asks:

Microsoft has talked a lot over the past week or two about bridging the UWP-Win32 divide and bringing full platform features and support to Win32 applications. I agree with the speculation that UWP and the Microsoft Store are on the way out regardless of what the executives say. I don't think they will admit that the initiatives are cancelled, but I would not be surprised if the Store got the Windows Phone treatment. Even the Office apps are no longer available to download directly from the Store.

See above. UWP has been killed.

My question is: Have you heard anything about Windows 10 in "S Mode" recently? It's great and fine that Microsoft wants developers of all folds to build "Windows apps" but the rub is that none of these Win32/WPF/WinForms apps will work on a machine in S Mode, which is basically all consumer-level hardware sold over the 2018 holidays.

No. My expectation is that S mode quietly co...

Gain unlimited access to Premium articles.

With technology shaping our everyday lives, how could we not dig deeper?

Thurrott Premium delivers an honest and thorough perspective about the technologies we use and rely on everyday. Discover deeper content as a Premium member.

Tagged with

Share post

Please check our Community Guidelines before commenting

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC