[bradford]

Why is a repository called 'Microsoft Store' being hosted on a seemingly random github account?

Why doesn't the README file explain what this repository is doing?

OP, what did you hope to accomplish with this submission?

The lack of support on LTSC is the least baffling thing going on here but I'm open to the possibility that I'm misunderstanding something....

[sgjohnson]

> Why doesn't the README file explain what this repository is doing?

It explains exactly what it's doing.

"Microsoft Store package for Windows LTSC."

It provides a Microsoft Store package for LTSC builds, and an install script that allows it to actually work. Windows LTSC builds don't have Microsoft Store preinstalled, and Microsoft offers no official way to re-enable it.

[donnachangstein]

> Windows LTSC builds don't have Microsoft Store preinstalled

No, it's not that it isn't "preinstalled", the Microsoft Store is literally not supported on LTSC, by design. LTSC was never intended to run the Store. The original use case for LTSC was for ATMs, industrial control equipment, hospitals, and the like, where IoT wasn't appropriate, where you needed the ability to run full desktop applications.

> Microsoft offers no official way to re-enable it.

Yeah that's because the Store was never supposed to run on LTSC. It's not supported. Why would they offer an official way to re-enable it? The whole point of LTSC is that it doesn't include the store.

If someone cobbled together an ugly hack to shoehorn it in, by definition it could break at any time.

Which it has.

There is no customer for this.

[jaoane]

If by "customer" you mean "way of making money", I agree, since I didn’t pay for it. OTOH, I have been running LTSC on my desktop for years because it's the best edition of Windows, and I haven't had any issues with the Store, which I had to install manually, thus far.

[qmr]

> There is no customer for this.

Lots of people including myself run LTSC to minimize Microsoft shitware.

[bradford]

Ok, but the brief README links to an actual microsoft.com domain (https://www.microsoft.com/store).

Why would you need a package to wrap a website? Wouldn't the website be accessible on a LTSC build, even if the official package isn't available?

If this is filling a highly useful role that I'm admittedly oblivious to, why are there only three commits in the project history?

(Best I can tell, this is a personal project that somehow made it to HN front page)

[nodja]

The store is also an app on windows and is sometimes an hard dependency to install apps that only exist on the windows store without having to jump through many hoops. It's usually part of windows itself in the regular retail builds of windows, but LTSC which is meant for enterprise and embedded system does not include it. Installing it is not straightforward which is what this repo provides.

There's no source code, it's a just a bunch of binaries and an install/uninstall script.

Edit: I should clarify that the link provided in the repo is not the microsoft store that the apps refer to. This would be a better link https://apps.microsoft.com

[hypercube33]

Its not just the store - its also the XBOX app/store and the framework to install "modern" applications that are .msix, appx, appxbundle.

I'm not seeing those attached to the repo linked here, and wonder if thats part of the reason why it wont work on older LTSC versions.

[lp0_on_fire]

I don't think there's anything nefarious going on here but to someone just quickly looking over the page it has the impression of being an official Microsoft project, given the gratuitous use of their trademark and zero mention of it being a "community" effort.

[sarahdellysse]

Yeah they do. Run `wsreset.exe -i` in powershell and it'll install the Windows Store after a few minutes.

[stronglikedan]

> Why is a repository called 'Microsoft Store' being hosted on a seemingly random github account?

Why not? I could spin up a repo called "Bradford Store" or "Google Store" or whatever I want. The maintainer just wanted "Microsoft Store"

> Why doesn't the README file explain what this repository is doing?

It does, and also answers your first question.

> OP, what did you hope to accomplish with this submission?

Because they knew HN would be interested. Same as every other OP that submits something.

> I'm open to the possibility that I'm misunderstanding something....

It does seem to be the case.

[fernvenue]

Hi, sorry for the late response :)

> The lack of support on LTSC is the least baffling thing going on here but I'm open to the possibility that I'm misunderstanding something....

And yea, you're right, but Indeed, many people need to use the store on LTSC, especially after Microsoft migrated many ecosystem attempts to the store, for example Microsoft Photos and some extensions like HEIC, and now not only UWP applications can enter the store; regular applications can also do so. It actually poses a very big problem that we cannot use the store anymore, at least that's what I think.

Furthermore, it is not just LTSC 2019 that cannot be used; this means that older versions of Windows (at least 1809 or older) are also no longer able to use it. In other words, we can no longer use the store on older versions of Windows. You might say that Microsoft itself didn't intend to provide support for older versions, and yea, I agree, that's true. However, the fact is that many people use Windows largely because of its compatibility advantages. I believe everyone should at least be aware that Microsoft is not as compatible with older programs, especially its own, which is what I want to express.

As for the license, I would like to clarify that it is only to prevent the packaging scripts from being used for commercial purposes and promotion. As you can see, this repository is not specifically intended for hosting store programs, so it does NOT apply to the store programs themselves, but only to the deployment scripts :)

[bradford]

Thanks for your response!

[richardwhiuk]

The license file in that repo is truely comical.

[numpad0]

I'm guessing this is "Tell HN: $TITLE", with a random README.md as source, in lieu of some random blog post