Can a smoother, faster, and better Microsoft Store win over Windows 11 users? Microsoft has a ton of improvements in store

The Microsoft Store has undergone a major overhaul, with interesting changes to the interface and significant performance improvements in the future. All this is aimed at modernizing the application and making it more attractive to users.

Let’s start with the performance improvements that Windows Latest noted in a DevBlogs post. In that post, Microsoft revealed that it is currently working on migrating the Microsoft Store to .NET 9, as well as enabling Native AOT in the “near” future.

Native AOT refers to Ahead-Of-Time compilation, as we saw earlier this week Microsoft plans to use this to speed up default Windows 11 apps like Photos and Phone Link.

The idea is that the latest version of the .NET Framework will improve the overall performance of the Microsoft Store, and the native AOT code compilation method should make the store launch faster. What’s more, you may even notice that pages in the Store load faster.

Microsoft senior software engineer Sergio Pedri posted on X about the issue, confirming that the Microsoft Store will see improved performance (as will other “large and complex” apps on Windows 11), thanks to these measures.

Yes, it is! I also mention this in the blog post, we are currently working on migrating Microsoft Store to .NET 9 and NativeAOT, and we are using all these new tools to do so. This allows us to continue to make incremental progress for WinUI 3 and reduce the risk of migration 🙂September 11, 2024

This is part of an ongoing process to improve the Microsoft Store, which is being rolled out gradually to reduce risk (of course, making too many changes at once is never the safest course of action).

Change the interface to manage the application more efficiently

In addition to the performance and load time improvements already in the pipeline, there are also some improvements to the Microsoft Store UI that are already rolling out.

With the latest Store update, Microsoft has introduced a new “Downloads” page that lets you track and manage app updates that are currently installed, highlighting when they were last updated, and also letting you check for any available release notes. This is separate from the existing “Library” page in the Store, which lists all the apps you’ve downloaded or purchased, and now has a handy search bar, as shown in screenshots provided by Windows Latest.

In the recent past, Microsoft has launched a number of initiatives to improve the storein this previous efforts to accelerate performance (and to make your store load faster). However, the Microsoft Store has so far been viewed tepidly at best – but perhaps such steps will gain more favor among Windows 11 users and make them change their minds about it.