microsoft store

Windows’ S Mode can feel like a safety rail — comforting, but confining — and leaving it is easier than most people expect. The official process uses the Microsoft Store and typically takes only a few minutes, but that simplicity hides a handful of important trade-offs, failure modes, and...

Microsoft has quietly given the Microsoft Store a power-user face-lift: a native command-line interface (Store CLI) that lets you browse, install, and update Store apps directly from a terminal without firing up the graphical Store app. Released in February 2026, the Store CLI is aimed at...

Microsoft has quietly added a first‑party command‑line client for the Microsoft Store to Windows 11: a built‑in Store CLI surfaced as the store command that lets you browse, search, install and update Store content from the terminal without opening the GUI. This is a small change on the surface...

Microsoft has quietly moved desktop personalization further into the mainstream: Windows 11 now has a dedicated Free Themes Hub inside the Microsoft Store that bundles hundreds of curated, one‑click themes and ties them directly into Settings for instant application and management. Background /...

Microsoft’s cloud suffered a regional power hiccup on February 7, 2026 that left a slice of the West US Azure footprint struggling — and it’s a reminder that even the biggest cloud platforms can be vulnerable to physical infrastructure failures and cascading recovery effects. (theverge.com)...

Microsoft’s brief but visible data-center power outage over the weekend exposed a fragile intersection between physical infrastructure and the everyday digital workings of Windows devices, temporarily disrupting Windows Update deliveries and Microsoft Store downloads for users worldwide...

Microsoft acknowledged that an unexpected power interruption at a West US data‑center briefly degraded parts of its update and Store infrastructure, producing widespread Windows 11 Microsoft Store failures and Windows Update errors for many users and administrators. Background / Overview The...

Microsoft Store and Windows Update users began seeing instant failures and a flood of 0x80244022 errors on Windows 11 this weekend as Microsoft acknowledged a datacenter power interruption that briefly took parts of its update and Store infrastructure offline, leaving installs and updates stuck...

Microsoft has quietly marked the long-lived 3D Viewer app as deprecated and set a firm removal date: the app will be delisted from the Microsoft Store on July 1, 2026, although existing installations will continue to operate for the time being without future updates or maintenance. Background /...

Microsoft has quietly moved another piece of its once‑ambitious 3D strategy onto the chopping block: 3D Viewer — the lightweight model inspector that shipped with Windows 10 and served as Microsoft’s simple bridge for viewing and inspecting glTF, OBJ, FBX and other model formats — was formally...

Seeing “There has been an error” in the Microsoft Store is one of those Windows annoyances that shows up suddenly, blocks downloads or updates, and makes otherwise simple tasks feel like a technical emergency — but in the vast majority of cases the fix is straightforward and non‑destructive if...

Amazon’s official Prime Video app from the Microsoft Store is the practical default for watching and downloading Prime content on Windows 10 — but calling it simply “the best” requires context: for offline downloads and a Store-native experience it’s the only fully featured, supported Amazon...

If the Xbox app on your PC crashes at launch and returns error code 0x80070426, the cause is almost always the same: Windows isn’t providing the background services the app depends on. The app itself — installation package, UI and local files — is usually present, but the platform services that...

If you rely on the Microsoft Store as your sole source of Windows apps, you’re missing some of the most useful, time-tested tools power users and everyday PC owners still turn to every day. A recent roundup revived an old truth: despite big improvements to the Store in 2024–2025, several...

A routine January Patch Tuesday update left a significant slice of Windows users temporarily unable to rely on core productivity workflows after the January 13, 2026 cumulative update (KB5074109) introduced regressions that broke parts of classic Outlook and disrupted remote access for some...

If Alexa won't install on your Windows 10 PC, you're not alone — recent platform changes, regional Store restrictions, and legacy installation paths have created a confusing landscape for users trying to run the Amazon Alexa app on a desktop. The simple "open Microsoft Store → search Alexa →...

BetaNews’s latest weekly Microsoft Store roundup keeps the steady cadence of small, useful arrivals and incremental updates that make the Store worth checking each week: this edition (four‑hundred‑and‑one in the series) highlights a handful of practical utilities — an Instagram grid slicer...

Logging in to Apple Music on a Windows PC is straightforward in principle — sign in with your Apple ID on the Apple Music app from the Microsoft Store or on the Apple Music web player — but real-world friction (two‑factor authentication, app vs. web feature differences, and occasional...

If you just unwrapped an Xbox or Microsoft Store gift card, a Game Pass code, or a 25‑character download key, redeeming it and getting straight to installs and subscriptions is usually quick — but there are a few small pitfalls that trip people up. This guide walks through every practical step...

Every fresh Windows 11 installation ships with a grab bag of first‑party apps—some genuinely useful, some quietly redundant, and a handful that feel like marketing dressed up as convenience—and ZDNet’s pragmatic “11 I keep / 11 I ditch” checklist is one of the clearest, user‑centric guides for...