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Microsoft Adds Store App-Only Restriction as Option in Windows 10

posted by on Thursday March 02 2017, @02:33AM   Printer-friendly
from the the-garden-is-now-barricaded dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Microsoft has added a setting to Windows 10 that will let users restrict new software installation to only those apps hosted in the Windows Store. The option debuted in the latest version of Windows 10 Insider, the preview program which gives participants an early peek at the next feature upgrade as Microsoft builds it. That version, labeled 15042, was released Friday.

With the setting at its most stringent, Windows 10 will block the installation of Win32 software -- the traditional legacy applications that continue to make up the vast bulk of the Windows ecosystem -- and allow users to install only apps from the Windows Store, Microsoft's marketplace. Other settings allow software installation from any source, or, while allowing that, put a preference on those from the Windows Store.

Unless Microsoft removes them, the options will appear in the next Windows 10 feature upgrade, dubbed "Creators Update," which is to launch in March or April.

-- submitted from IRC

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 02 2017, @01:00PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 02 2017, @01:00PM (#473831)

    Will the .exe simply run anyway e.g. putty, or the myraids of portable apps out there? Can the user "simulate" an install by importing appropriate registry settings, and manually doing whatever else an installer does, to get larger applications to run? Or is this doing something more drastic like whitelisting which .exes are allowed to run?

    Though from a security perspective, whitelisting is a good thing. Still not good enough to make me want to use Win10 though, with all the other downsides to it.

  • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Thursday March 02 2017, @06:15PM (1 child)

    by Pino P (4721) on Thursday March 02 2017, @06:15PM (#473974) Journal

    Will the .exe simply run anyway e.g. putty, or the myraids of portable apps out there?

    Yes, provided the application's publisher rebuilds it using the Desktop Bridge [microsoft.com] (codenamed Centennial) and submits it to the Windows Store.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @02:37AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @02:37AM (#474231)

      Why do men say yes when they mean no?