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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

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  • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday March 02 2017, @01:25PM

    by LoRdTAW (3755) on Thursday March 02 2017, @01:25PM (#473842) Journal

    - The step after that will be making it only possible to change that setting if you go into the registry or some other equally challenging procedure that Aunt Tilly can't possibly pull off (which seems reasonable - after all, we don't want users to accidentally put themselves in a bad security state).

    Or buying the enterprise edition which will only be available through volume licensing via a VAR, and only after connection to domain controller with a GPO granting access.

    - The step after that will be eliminating the option to do anything other than only get your applications from the store (which will seem reasonable - after all, only geeky wizardly types are even trying to do anything else).

    No. The last step would be removing the ability to run win32 and only support metro as was done in Windows RT.

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