Microsoft Store

Microsoft Store, formerly Windows Store in Windows 8.x and Windows 10 (prior to the Creators Update), is a digital distribution platform developed by Microsoft for Microsoft Windows PCs and Xbox consoles.

It started as an app store for Windows 8 as the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform apps. It is the successor to the Windows Marketplace, which was a distribution platform for apps designed for Windows Vista. Over the years, the Microsoft Store expanded into a unified distribution platform offering apps, Xbox content, digital videos, themes and fonts. Distribution of digital music and e-books ceased in 2017 and 2019 respectively.

Windows 8.x
The Windows Store was first implemented in Windows 8 build 7777. It will not start if your local user account list is not contained in a  file stored on a Microsoft intranet server; shortly after, starting with build 7814 the existence of the Windows Store was obfuscated by renaming the application files and branding to "MSHelp". It was rewritten to use WinRT instead of being a purely Win32 application in build 7927 and renamed to Windows Store around build 8045.

Windows Store was officially announced by Microsoft on 13 September 2011 at the 2011 Build conference alongside Windows Developer Preview, but was not made available until the Windows 8 Consumer Preview in February 2012.

Windows Store was officially launched on 26 October 2012 alongside the release of Windows 8 and Windows RT.

An updated version of Windows Store was introduced with the release of Windows 8.1 in 2013. This new version added a re-designed home page to display apps in focused categories (such as popular, recommended, top free and paid, and special offers) with expanded details, while the ability for apps to automatically update was also added. Windows 8.1 Update added further changes to the UI such as increasing the top app lists to return 1000 apps instead of 100 apps, a "picks for you" section, and changing the default sorting for reviews to be by "most popular".

The Windows Store for Windows 8 was shut down in July 2019.

Windows 10
In Windows 10, the app received an overhaul and merged Microsoft's separate distribution platforms like Xbox Music, Xbox Video and Windows Phone Marketplace into Windows Store making it into a unified store front for Windows 10 based platforms offering Windows Phone apps, music, movies and TV shows. At this time, Xbox Music and Xbox Video were also re-branded as Groove Music and Microsoft Movies & TV respectively.

In 2017, themes and e-books were added to the Windows Store.

In September 2017, the app was re-branded as Microsoft Store starting with Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. The Xbox Store was also merged into Microsoft Store, adding Xbox content as another new content type.

In October 2017, Microsoft announced that the sale of digital music on Microsoft Store would cease on 31 December 2017 after Groove Music Pass was discontinued. Until 31 January 2018, users were able to transfer their music to Spotify.

In February 2018, Progressive Web Apps became available on Microsoft Store.

Starting with Windows 10 April 2018 Update, fonts became available to download and install from Microsoft Store.

In April 2019, the sale of e-books on Microsoft Store ceased and all purchased books became inaccessible by July 2019. Microsoft issued refunds to users that had purchased books from Microsoft Store.

Windows 11
In Windows 11, the app received a major overhaul and was expanded to accept classic desktop applications as opposed to only accepting UWP apps. Additionally, the developer of an app can now also use its own payment system, rather than using Microsoft's one, which brought apps like the Adobe Creative Cloud to the Store. This version was backported later to Windows 10.

A redesigned web counterpart is active since March 2022, and can be accessed here. Clicking on a download link there will open a  page, which launches the Microsoft Store app in an embedded format.