Build 2025: Microsoft Store Improves Win32 Apps Support and Drops Onboarding Fees for Individual Developers

Microsoft continues its efforts to make the Microsoft Store on Windows PCs more attractive for developers, and the company announced some notable updates at its Build 2025 developer conference this morning. First of all, Microsoft will let individual developers publish their apps to the store for free, with the onboarding fees going away starting in June 2025. The company also plans to streamline the app submission experience and let developers use new App campaigns to promote their Windows apps in the Microsoft Store.

The digital storefront is also improving support for legacy Win32 apps. It’s now possible to get updates from these apps from the Microsoft Store, even if the updates are provided by the developers themselves. Until now, users downloading MSI/EXE apps through the Store had to update them by using the apps’ own software update systems.

The Microsoft Store is also adding a non-interactive progress bar for Win32 app installation, and it will also display when apps were last updated. The company said that this has been a top-requested feature from the developer community.

As of today, the Microsoft Store is still missing important apps like Google Chrome or Google Drive, but it’s now hosting AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Perplexity, and the popular calendar app Fantastical is another recent addition. Microsoft said today that Notion is also coming soon to the Store. According to Microsoft, its Store now has over 250 million monthly active users, and developers may want to check out the Build session titled “Boost Your App’s Success with the Latest Microsoft Store Features.”