Microsoft opens up Windows 10 Fall Creators Update SDK to all and renames Windows Store to Microsoft Store
Emil Protalinski / VentureBeat :
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the second half of Microsoft's 2017 SDK cadence: after the Creators Update and its SDK shipped in April, the Fall Creators Update SDK now goes to all developers rather than a preview ring. The lineage runs back to the 2015 SDKs that let Android and iOS apps be ported as universal Windows apps — the Fall Creators SDK is that bridge-technology program reaching general availability.
The rename from Windows Store to Microsoft Store is the quieter but longer-lived move: it rebrands the storefront around the company rather than the OS, and it is the starting point for the loosening that followed, including [[a:1159857|the 2021 revamp that would let devs submit unpackaged Win32 apps and use third-party commerce platforms]]. Microsoft had already been stretching the store's scope by bringing the full Win32 version of Office to the Windows Store months earlier.
First-order effects
- Every developer can immediately build against the Fall Creators Update SDK, removing the preview-gate that separated them from the Creators Update SDK release earlier that year.
- The storefront's rebrand to Microsoft Store changes how the shop is presented across Windows 10 devices, aligning its name with the company's other consumer properties.
Second-order effects
- Naming the store after Microsoft rather than Windows positions it to carry non-Windows inventory — a direction the Win32 Office listing and the later Win32/third-party-commerce opening both confirm.
- A broader SDK rollout shortens the lag between Microsoft's platform updates and developer adoption, pressuring the store's app catalog to fill faster ahead of each Windows update.
Third-order effects
- The rename plus the store's successive widenings trace a structural arc: Microsoft's storefront evolving from a Windows-bound UWP catalog toward a general Microsoft commerce platform, with the 2021 unpackaged-Win32 policy as the far end of the path this rename starts.
- If the SDK pattern holds — preview first, then general availability — Microsoft's platform updates become a predictable twice-yearly developer cycle, standardizing how the Windows ecosystem absorbs new APIs.
The trend: Microsoft's storefront is being repositioned from a Windows-only app shop into a company-wide commerce platform, with each SDK release widening developer access along the way.