In 2023, Microsoft dropped support for 18 different Windows 10 and 11 features. Here is a recap of everything Microsoft deprecated, including Windows Mixed Reality, Cortana, WordPad, and more.
Uwp RSS
A bunch of new files were quietly added to the Windows 11 System32 folder and they seem to suggest Microsoft may be looking to ditch UWP in favor of XAML and Win32-based shell on Windows 11.
As Microsoft had announced two days ago, ExplorerPatcher's two latest versions resolve the Windows 11 22H2 Start menu issues. Alongside that, the app also brings new UWP options, and more.
The recently released Windows 11 build 25905 contains an important change for those using Windows PCs with ARM processors: the OS no longer supports arm32 UWP applications. Here is what that means.
Microsoft finally has a permanent fix for systems suffering from the broken Start menu, Windows Search, and misbehaving UWP apps. The necessary update is now available for Windows 10 and 11.
This is another reminder that unofficial apps can cause issues on Windows sometimes. Following a popular debloater app being removed from Store, Defender Remover was also found to be breaking UWP.
Our latest edition of Microsoft Weekly unpacks news about Microsoft's declining revenues in consumer categories, some Windows 11 updates, bugs, and fixes, and a bunch of app enhancements.
_medium.jpg)
This week's edition of Microsoft Weekly is filled to the brim with news about tons of new Windows bugs (and fixes), a bunch of Patch Tuesday updates, and improvements to a competent file manager.
Microsoft has released version 1.2 of the Windows App SDK with a bunch of new features including support for third-party Widgets in Windows 11, updated media playback controls, and lots more.
WebView2, a Chromium-based control for embedding web content into Windows apps, is now generally available to developers building apps based on WinUI, replacing the original EdgeHTML-based WebView.
WhatsApp has announced that its new app for Windows is now live. It ditches the web-based Electron framework in favor of Windows-native Universal Windows Platform (UWP) technologies.
The WhatsApp Beta UWP recently received an update on Windows 11, adding a couple of useful features. However, they aren't entirely new to most users, as Android and iOS users have had them for years.
WhatsApp's UWP app for desktop is missing several useful features that are available on other platforms. However, with the arrival of Archive Chats, the list of missing features has become shorter.
_medium.jpg)
Meta-owned chat messenger company WhatsApp is currently working on a slew of new features, the ability to react to messages being one of those. The company will also bring it to WhatApp UWP.
Following the arrival of the WhatsApp Beta app on the Microsoft Store, the company has added several new features to improve the app experience. It gets even better with dark mode support.
_medium.jpg)
It appears that the WhatsApp Desktop app available via the Microsoft Store is about to get a Windows 11 makeover soon. The development team has reportedly transitioned to WinUI 2.6 for this purpose.
Via an AUA conducted on Reddit by the Windows Developer team, Microsoft has confirmed that it is focusing on improving Windows 11's performance especially when it comes to the UI performance.
Microsoft has confirmed that it is dumping its new Web-based Whiteboard and going back to the native app based on UWP after the user feedback has been generally negative owing to missing features.
The new WhatsApp for Windows 10 and 11, which was spotted earlier today, can already be downloaded and tried out, if it works. The app is still in beta and is apparently based on the UWP framework.
It appears that UWP is on the way out as Microsoft has recently published guidance about how to migrate from UWP to Windows App SDK, which has been highlighted as the new strategic direction.
Customers looking to migrate their Java workloads to the cloud will be happy to see Java-centric announcements at Build 2021 including the general availability of Microsoft's Build of OpenJDK.
Microsoft's attempt at bridging the gap between UWP and Win32 is now available for developers building packaged apps. Version 0.5 still has some limitations, but version 1.0 will come later in 2021.
Microsoft's Windows Community Toolkit simplifies the process of building UWP and .NET apps. Version 7.0 of the utility sports a new MVVM library and improved notification support, among other things.
Microsoft just doubled down on Win32, creating new ways to consume Win32 APIs in programming languages other than C or C++. Project win32metadata makes it easier to call Win32 APIs for developers.
A near-final version of Microsoft's upcoming lightweight OS, Windows 10X, has leaked, providing the clearest look yet at the upcoming offering. The OS competes against the likes of Chromebooks.
myTube, one of the most popular Windows 10 apps for YouTube, has just received a major update to version 4.0, and it introduces a large number of new features and changes. Here's what's new.
After a few months in technical preview, Google is bringing its open-source, cross-platform framework, Flutter, to Windows in Alpha, with the company working to add UWP support soon.
Today at its Build 2020 virtual developer conference, Microsoft announced Project Reunion, a new plan to unify the Universal Windows Platform and Win32, and it will be backward compatible.
As promised last year, Microsoft has begun automatically installing OneNote for desktop along with the Office 365 suite of apps. The app no longer has the year branding and is called just 'OneNote'.
Microsoft has launched a new WinUI website that lists the advantages of using the platform. The firm aims to get developers to migrate their existing apps to use the modern UI of Windows 10 and 10X.
Microsoft is going to be shutting down its Ad Monetization platform on June 1, the company announced. UWP developers are going to have to find a new way to monetize their free apps.
Kodi is looking for Windows developers that have experience with UWP. Moreover, it says that if it doesn't find some, it might have to cancel its next versions for the Xbox One and Windows 10.
Microsoft has relased version 6 of the Windows Community Toolkit, and it brings XAML Islands to Win32 apps, support for apps targetting ARM64, new controls, and other improvements.
Launch, the event that saw a number of new UWP apps released onto the Microsoft Store earlier this year, is coming back in 2020, and interested developers can now sign up to participate.
In the latest development of the "UWP is dead" saga, it seems that Microsoft's own game studios are abandoning the platform, as the upcoming Gears 5 will be based on Win32 for the PC version.
Amidst talk of the death of the Universal Windows Platform, a group of developers has joined forces to release a number of apps built on the platform through an annual event being called Launch.
Microsoft confirmed today that its Xbox Game Pass subscription service is finally coming to PC in an official form, featuring over 100 games from over 75 publishers and developers in the PC space.
Microsoft is working on new features for the UWP version of OneNote after deprecating its desktop version last year. The new features include sorting pages and setting default templates.
Microsoft has updated its development tool for the Universal Windows Platform, introducing support for Visual Studio 2019 alongside a few performance enhancements and design updates.
Ryken Studio, the developer of the popular UWP YouTube client myTube!, today announced that the app will be free for everyone until November 2. myTube! also received a series of improvements today.
New version of Tiny11 Builder lets you debloat any Windows 11 build or version
How to reinstall Windows 11 without losing your data using Windows Update
Forget Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, what you really want to download this month is Fedora Silverblue 40
Microsoft nearly fired engineer who added Windows Zip support, but it's a tricky situation
Recommended by 
We're on Mastodon!
We're on Mastodon!