So like Linux has been doing for years?
this post was submitted on 28 May 2025
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Yes but probably minus the good aspects.
Hey, if it means I don't have to pick between five ways to package the same app I may call it a wash.
Of course Windows already has two of those and one sucks.
I'm really torn on this one because I don't necessarily want every app to have to keep a service or do a launch check for updates every time, I'd rather have a single update manager. That's better. But I don't want Windows to know everything I have installed and whether or not it's updated and to pester me with updates of zombie apps I haven't used in years. That's worse.
I guess it comes down to implementation. So knowing MS's track record I am not holding my breath here.
They already know everything you have installed. They have an option to "disable" telemetry but who knows how reliable that is.
Oh, I'm hoping it's not reliable. GDPR fines are fun and the EU needs funding somehow.
I assume everything big companies tell you a thing is doing is being done, because big companies have big legal departments and compliance departments and would rather write a new EULA than pay billions of dollars.
It doesn't mean that some billionaire CEO asshole won't occassionally flaunt the rules, but I hate the paranoid default that makes people sound like hyperpartisan conspiracy theorists. Big corpos do enough crap out in the open to be mad about, you don't need to make up new crap to be madder about.
Since at least the mid 90s.
On the one hand, it's about time - APT was released in 1998, and it wasn't even the first package manager.
On the other hand, I'm sure Microsoft will find a way to make it shit.
You’re talking just package managers? Winget has existed for about 5 years. Not to mention the many third party package managers like chocolatey and appget.
But winget is still somewhat hacky, this would make use of the actual system updates system and be opt in for better integration
Is it? I’ve never actually bothered to look under the hood. I’ll have to give it a peek some time.
I only speak from trying to use it as a package manager, it's reliant on people making custom silent install scripts and updating packages correctly. I had some apps that didn't have their version updated in some file so it always reported being out of date to Winget so it was always downloading and reinstalling. Just janky primarily with third party apps.
They should work on getting it right for their own stuff, first.
No no no, you see, you have One Note and One Note for Windows 10, so you can, you know, use it in Windows 10... I mean yes you can install One Note but One Note for Windows 10 is better integrated with Outlook but the one thats already installed.
Microsoft marketing is the epitome of "fuck up, move up", I'm convinced. I'm so glad I'm retired and don't have to deal with any of that bullshit anymore.
Is that Outlook or Outlook (New)?
Yes
If you could only be arsed to implement the Windows/Microsoft Store well enough to support this use case 13 years ago many of us wouldn't be Linux comrades today. 😂
I still would be, but I'd have fewer things to tease Windows users about.
As any current or former Windows admin will know - they can barely handle Windows OS updates without breaking something major every other month.
I mean on the one hand it would be good to do away with all the duplicated efforts of in-app automatic updaters and app 'agents' that tie up background resources. But colour me jaded, i think this will just be a walled garden that app developers have to pay to opt into, and will mean users lose control over which apps they trust to update without thinking, and which they selectively update after a 'hmm i better just check they didnt cause any major bugs' search. A new revenue stream for MS is the primary goal.
Winget?
Microsoft trying is darndest to comfort me in my decision to move to linux ʘ‿ʘ
So you don't like having your app updates in one tool like apt?
Some people aren't going to like anything Microsoft does, even if it mimicks one of the biggest selling points of the systems they left windows for.
So you left windows for an OS that already handles updates this way, and now you're mad that windows is doing it?
I mean...... what could go wrong? spoiler: EVERYTHING
Switching the PC off when it was updating in the background and now the application will never run again on that PC, but continue to hold a license that can only be revoked from the application itself. Running out of hard disk because it for some reason fails to update the application and is now busy downloading it again for attempt #73, of course without cleaning up anything because that only happens after a successful update. Blocking applications daily or weekly because of updates, and of course you urgently need them now.
Didn't they just announce they're getting rid of drivers being part of Windows update? They couldn't handle drivers, but want to handle ALL apps? Surely that'll go well.
Are they seriously killing driver updates from windows update?
Does this include winget? You can install things directly from any repo with it like an actual package manager.
Maybe it'll be that on the back end?
Who am I kidding, it'll be a brand new system with its own rules and problems.
If they do this, i will stop using windows.
Leaving it for what exactly? Linux? If so, I have some bad news about linux package managers.
Linux is not Windows.
I agree. My point stands, though. You, a Linux user, believes it is bad that windows plans to handle updates the same way Linux does. That is very weird to me.
windows update is known to force updates down your throat, even when it is just not appropriate right now. that's not how things work on linux.
windows plans to handle updates the same way Linux does
Windows will have snaps and flatpacks and user repo packages that all update separately using separate update utilities, which are themselves separate from the package manager for the general OS?
explain
the package managers for linux that i know of are great because you can easily control everything they do
Would you though? Many people say the same thing but here we are. Windows is still dominant in spite of all its failings.
Should have done that two decades ago.
Ah yes.
Windows Store might be a good name for it.
As in, a sort of App Store monopoly…?
Linux has been doing this for decades via APT and other software managers. Not locked down, either.
I can't even trust microshit to let me plug a monitor in with their crap thinking it's a fucking speaker and changing all my defaults..
Nothing good will come from this lol
Please no.