[joewood1972]

The problem with an open distribution system is that it easy to abuse, and that leads to security problems. Most of us all know non-IT literate family members that have clicked through a web advert advertising to "speed up your computer" to end up installing some bad spyware/malware or whatever. I'm happy for Windows to become a walled garden by default, as long there's an easy option to switch it off.

[chipperyman573]

I'm not. Every time a family member asks me to make a program to automate something they do regularly it always involves a call about how to disable SmartScreen and always goes something like this:

>Ok, so run the program. Yeah, I know it says your computer is protecting you, just ignore that. Look for a little button that says "More info". No, "More info". No, don't click OK. Ugh. Re-open the file. Ok, under that scary sentence that you should ignore, there's a button that says "More info". Click that. Ok, good. Click run anyway. Yes, I know it says it could be unsafe, click it anyway.

You get the picture. It makes distributing little side projects you make a huge headache, which frankly is not something I see microsoft solving any time soon.

[joewood1972]

Not sure I follow. For distributing apps for friends you can (and I do) distribute using HockeyApp or TestFlight or whatever. There's also a Development->Sideload app feature in Windows 10 already. It's hard to argue that the cost of doing this outweighs the security benefits. Just think how hard it would be to do a DDoS attack without robots installed via malware everywhere.

[wvenable]

There's no switching it off -- it's a new platform. The old platform will continue to exist but it's the old platform and it continue to be harder to use it.