The Windows Forecast is a look at the future of Windows that comments on the latest news for Windows Insiders, as well as other major announcements in the Windows space each and every week. My name is João Carrasqueira, and I've been covering the world of Windows professionally since 2018. If there's something you'd like to see covered, you can reach me at joao@xda-developers.com.

As we approach the holiday season, news around Windows 11 is really starting to wind down, but we do have some interesting things to look over. This week, Microsoft really focused on improvements to the Microsoft Store, and it helped me realize that I don't think it matters. Let's dive in.

Will users ever care about the Microsoft Store?

Microsoft keeps trying, I'll give it that

This week, Microsoft shared a blog post highlighting some of the big improvements it's been making to the Microsoft Store. For the past few months, and it's great stuff to see. The company claims that it has improved launch times by as much as 25%, and that the chances of downloads hanging have been reduced by 50%. Granted, I'd say that last part really shouldn't be a problem at all considering the Microsoft Store is over a decade old at its core, but an improvement is an improvement. There have also been improvements to discoverability and navigation, update management, and new ways to install apps, such as using web links to install Win32 apps from the Store.

More recently, the company introduced a new capability that allows you to directly update externally hosted apps directly within the Microsoft Store, and this is honestly very cool. Before, the Store could have links to install apps that weren't hosted or vetted by Microsoft, but once you installed them, updates had to be managed by the apps themselves, and now, the Microsoft Store can detect available updates and allow you to install them through there, though it won't update automatically.

This is a legitimately good feature to have that likely involves some real work, and I want to commend Microsoft for putting in this effort. But it feels like, at this point, the Microsoft Store's problems are beyond what can be fixed by just making the experience better. What's missing from the Store is its lifeblood — the apps themselves. Sure, there's a lot of stuff on the Microsoft Store now, but there's a lot more that isn't there. Steam isn't on the Microsoft Store. Google Chrome isn't on the Microsoft Store. Video editing software like DaVinci Resolve isn't on there, either.

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I frankly don't know if there's anything Microsoft can do that will make users truly care and use the Microsoft Store. My colleague Adam Conway actually just wrote earlier this week about how he doesn't remember the last time he used the Microsoft Store, and it's easy to see why. As long as all the apps users want are on the web and not on the Microsoft Store, there's not going to be a good enough reason to switch. And I also think there's a big stigma towards the Store at this point due to all the problems it has had in the past and in some ways still has. Microsoft fixing problems with app downloads hanging in 2024 when the platform first appeared on Windows 8 in 2012 just tells you how bad the situation has been for all these years. People aren't likely to come back to try it again when the method they've always used is still available and works perfectly fine.

I do see value in the Microsoft Store as a concept, but it will take a lot more than what the company has been doing to make it more appealling to users. What that is, I frankly don't know at this point. Maybe a rebranding would help reset its reputation, but it would have to be done right.

Microsoft is fixing an annoying webcam limitation

Cameras can finally work with multiple apps at once

This isn't entirely new, but Bluesky user phantomofearth, who does great work at uncovering hidden Windows features, recently pointed out that Microsoft added a new feature to Canary builds of Windows 11 and never mentioned it anywhere (Microsoft added this information to the latest blog post on Friday, after I had written this article). This feature is called Multi-app camera, and it was actually spotted back in August when it was hidden behind a feature flag, but now, it's available to everyone in the Canary channel by default, and it's really cool to see.

If you don't know, the way webcams work on Windows is that only one app can stream from a given camera at any given time, so to use the same camera with a different app, you have to turn off the camera in whatever app is using it beforehand. The solution to this is usually to create a virtual camera using software such as OBS, since virtual cameras can stream to multiple apps at once. This can be a bit cumbersome, though. In fact, many years ago, I wound up using an app called ManyCam because I really wanted this capability (I'm not sure why anymore, though).

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Microsoft's solution is to add a virtual webcam tool directly into Windows, so you don't need to jump through as many hoops to make this work. It's really cool to see, and while I don't remember why I wanted this back in the day, I do have a good reason for it today. I recently started spending my days on a Discord co-working channel that really helps me focus, but I do have meetings for work, so to be able to join those meetings without having to fiddle with my camera on Discord first would be greatly helpful.

Interestingly, Microsoft's description of this feature in the Settings app says it's a capability designed for users who are hard of hearing, and maybe I'm way out of my depth here, but I can't see the correlation between these two things. I know Microsoft is heavily focused on making Windows more accessible, but I don't understand how being able to stream your camera to multiple apps plays into your ability to hear at all, but I'd love to hear what users have to say about this if they do know more about this potential use case. Either way, the feature is great to have, and I'm glad Microsoft finally got around to adding this into Windows itself.

What will next week bring?

The only other news this week came late on Friday with Microsoft finally bringing Copilot+ to Intel and AMD PCs, but I don't think there's much that can be said about that. News is slowing down as we head into the holiday season, but of course, as someone who loves tracking Windows development, I'll keep picking up all the breadcrumbs I can talk about here, so stay tuned for the next edition of The Windows Forecast.