According to a recent report, Microsoft is once again planning to reboot its software efforts on the mobile side, with a new device and different software experience, which could possibly be full Windows 10 running on mobile devices via CSHELL. As part of these efforts, however, it would seem that Microsoft will, once again, be leaving some features behind as with the move from Windows Phone 7 to Windows Phone 8.
While the finer details of the Redmond giant"s future plans aren"t very well known currently, it has been speculated that Microsoft will be dropping support for non-UWP apps that require Silverlight to operate. Now, internal builds from Microsoft seem to confirm this fact, as a tweet shared by Gustave M. indicates users trying to open a Silverlight app will be met with a prompt suggesting that support for the platform has been dropped.
Sorry pic.twitter.com/GOYRZ1ZqtR
— Gustave M. (@gus33000) June 2, 2017
This will definitely cause the already egregious app gap to be further aggravated as many of the apps currently found on the Windows Store use Silverlight, including some of the most popular options like WhatsApp. The number of compatible games will also possibly reduce drastically as many older games use Silverlight and, due to Microsoft"s shrinking mobile presence, have not been updated by their creators.
Dropping Silverlight support will definitely make for a leaner and more focused effort on Microsoft"s part to reboot its mobile efforts but it is more than likely to anger current users of Windows on the phone as they are once again left behind by the company.
Source: Gustave M. (Twitter) via On MSFT