Windows 11 Microsoft Store Review: What's new?

The buzz around the new Windows 11 doesn’t seem to tone down anytime soon as users are constantly looking and analyzing every new feature, comparing prices, searching the web, and starting threads on forums.

But lately, a lot of expressed interest has been around the new Microsoft Store and all that will come with it.

Gamers want to know if Steam and Epic Games Store will really be a part of the new app store, android users if Microsoft is really bringing Android apps to Windows 11, and so on.

The vision for the new store can best be described by Panos Panay, the executive and chief product officer for Windows+ devices at Microsoft:

The new Microsoft Store is your single trusted location for apps and content to watch, create, play, work and learn. Not only will we bring you more apps than ever before, we’re also making all content – apps, games, shows, movies – easier to search for and discover with curated stories and collections.

Want to know everything there is to know about the new app store? Then keep reading as in today’s article we’ll take a closer look at the new Microsoft Store for Windows 11 and answer all of your questions.

What does the new Microsoft Store have to offer?

A cleaner and organized design

From a visual point of view, the redesign is based on Fluent Design and WinUI, the native UI platform of Windows.

The new Microsoft Store looks cleaner, way more organized, has a new navigation menu on the left side, and a new search bar.

But what is definitely an improvement is the app’s page design as it will have a much more detailed appearance.

You can now see extra information about the size of the downloads, reviews from users, app features, and a changelog.

According to Microsoft, the new store was redesigned to meet the needs of customers and developers alike, offering an overall better experience and performance than the Windows 10 Store.

The store will support more app types

During the big announcement, they also revealed that the brand-new store will support more app types, including unpackaged Win32 .exe and .MSI programs.

In addition, developers will be able to also use .NET, UWP, Xamarin, Electron, React Native, Java, and Progressive Web Apps packaging technology to get apps published in the Microsoft Store.

But what really caught the attention during the Windows 11 launch is the news that app developers can now use their own CDN and commerce platforms.

This means they’ll get to keep 100% of their revenue, unlike other app stores that usually take a certain percent.

The company will allow third-party payment systems from July 28, but as with everything that sounds too good to be true, Microsoft said that this won’t include games.

New partnerships, interesting apps, and more games

Microsoft Store on Windows 11 will bring you thousands of apps and games, all verified, all safe, with most of them free to download and play.

Over the last years, Steam has become a huge game and app store on Windows so of course, Microsoft wants to bring its users all the apps and games they want.

On another note, some new confirmed partners are Adobe with its Creative Cloud suite, Zoom, Disney Plus, and even TikTok.

You will be able to find and download Notepad and Paint directly from the store, alongside Office, Edge, and Visual Studio.

Microsoft also dropped some huge news regarding Microsoft Teams, as for the first time, the app will be directly integrated into Windows.

This comes as quite a big surprise for users considering the long collaboration with Skype, which wasn’t even mentioned during the Windows 11 launch.

But one of the biggest and most exciting news was the partnership announcement with Amazon Appstore.

This means that Windows customers will now have access to Android apps on their Windows 11 devices.

Take a look at what Palanidaran Chidambaram, Director of the Amazon Appstore and Cross-Screen Technology had to say regarding the subject:

Today we offer a broad selection of mobile apps in our Amazon Appstore, available across Fire TV, Fire Tablets, and Android devices that our customers use and enjoy every day… With this announcement, Amazon Appstore developers will now have the opportunity to make their Android apps available to hundreds of millions of Windows customers.

With this partnership, users will be able to search for apps in the Microsoft Store and get them through the Amazon Store.

While also be able to search for apps by going directly to a website but have the option to use a pop-up store to download the app through the Microsoft Store.

This is great also news to those who love Instagram or Snapchat for instance, as using the app is so much easier than using the website.

To make this Appstore integration possible on x86 systems Microsoft noted during the launch event that Windows users will be able to buy Amazon mobile apps and run them via Intel Bridge technology.

In addition, the Intel-powered apps will also run on ARM and AMD-based systems, though the technical details of how that will work are not quite clear yet.

Will Windows 10 apps work on Windows 11?

Windows 11 new Microsoft Store will also come to Windows 10, so if you are not yet decided if you want to make the upgrade, you will still be able to use the new store and all its perks.

Ultimately, Microsoft’s goal is to create an Appstore that would bring reassurance and convenience to its users, to avoid the risk of installing apps from the web involve.

The new Microsoft Store will be available to customers with the upgrade to Windows 10 or Windows 11 starting from this years fall.

So far, we’ve covered almost every question you might’ve had regarding the new Windows 11, we spoke with users and even compiled an exclusive survey, for you to have all the information you need in one place.

Have any questions? Feel free to use our comments section below and we’ll get back to you in no time.