Windows App now available on all major platforms | Hacker News Reader

Windows App now available on all major platforms

techcommunity.microsoft.com

37 pointsalexrustic43 comments

Microsoft has an app called, "Windows App". Perhaps this shouldn't be surprising from a company that named their OS after a single featur, but this name is so much worse. What does it do? The name doesn't say at all.

Did it really occur to nobody at Microsoft that "now open the Windows App app" is going to confuse a lot of people?

Even after reading the whole article, all I can infer is that this is a "seamless" replacement for Microsoft's "Remote Desktop". I'm assuming it's 100% Microsoft cloud based, although I'd be curious if it can be used without the Internet.

On non-Windows platforms its a partial UI rework on the existing Remote Desktop Client, but I think on Windows its separate to the existing Remote Desktop Client/App(s) and its specifically for accessing cloud-hosted Windows PCs (Windows365, DevBox, Azure VDI etc)

More specifically, I get the impression it’s part of a strategy to recenter the Windows desktop experience from “the PC on your desk” to “an aggregated view of your workplace-focused cloud services”.

Microsoft seems to be terrible at naming things, but their strategy is to confuse people when their products get labeled as garbage and have a stigma attached so they can just change the name again.

I'm more surprised they didn't call it Microsoft One.

I'm sure they're saving that one for the version of Windows that is actually just Teams + Cortana

That's probably earmarked for the next re-branding of Microsoft Azure AD Active Entra

youre telling me https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14160809

terrible is the understatement of the century. naming, renaming. different products with the same name. the same products with different names in different contexts. ugh.

Don’t worry. They will soon rename and release different variations: ‘Windows App Home’, Windows App Plus’, Windows App for 365’, ‘Windows App Server’, ‘Windows App Plus for Enterprise’, ‘Windows App Entra’, ‘Windows App CoPilot’, ‘Windows App Copilot Plus for 365”, and ‘Windows App CoPilot Plus for Enterprise 365 Entra Admin’. Monthly tiered pricing plans are currently being finalized.

It reminded me of everything and anything AI related being called Copilot.

Just remember fam: you can use the Windows App on macOS to connect to a Linux RDP session, but you cannot use the Windows App on Windows to connect to a regular Windows RDP session :)

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-app/get-started-co...

Can I run the Windows App in Windows Subsystem for Linux to connect to a Windows RDP session?

I haven't tried this on Windows yet because it appears to require a Work or School app. I'm really confused as to why you can't connect to a remote PC from Windows with this app? Is this an intentional strategy, or is it "coming later"? It looks like the "metro" version of Remote Desktop Client app is still available in the Windows store, and as long as I can Start -> Run "mstsc", I'm happy. :-)

Also, on macOS they have renamed the Remote Desktop Client to Windows App and it appears to work exactly like the old app. Which is different to how the Windows version of the app works.

Crazy stuff...

"With this general availability launch, users of Remote Desktop clients for Windows, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and web will transition to Windows App."

I installed the Windows App on Windows and the first screen prompts with "Connect to your cloud resources with a work or school account. Sign in". This definitely does not make Windows App seem like a replacement for Remote Desktop, which requires no cloud account.

Thankfully it doesn't do this on MacOS at least. Otherwise I'd have to start reformatting my remaining Windows 10 machines with Linux (sooner than I was going to)

Microsoft's desperation to have everyone make a Microsoft account is becoming pervasive throughout their operating system and application portfolio.

But it's worse than that. Anyone can create a free "Microsoft account", but you need more than that to sign in to this app. You need a "Work or school account", which is similar to a Microsoft account, but not the same thing. A "Work or school account" is an account tied to a commercial M365 subscription.

The immediate impact of this is simple, Remote Desktop apps previously made by Microsoft are being re-branded to be the "Windows App"

As far as long-term impact, Im curious to know how this might impact Windows developers. Does this push developers to choose native platforms over the unnecessary aditional abstration of running within windows? IE: If your user base simply starts using their iphones to occasionally access your application via the windows app, does this push your team to just choose to build an iphone app?

Or does this become the best way for developers to build a cross-platform experiences?

I'm confused by your question because this isn't anything new. They just renamed the old Remote Desktop App which was already available for alternate platforms like MacOS. I don't see how that changes anything for developers that they couldn't do before.

It's an RDP client / management UI, I guess?

Yes, the copy is obfuscated, but this is a new remote desktop tool, like VNC, RDP, or Teamviewer.

or NoMachine :)

It is not "new". In the Mac space it was called "Microsoft Remote Desktop Client" and that client had messages saying it was going to be renamed in the near future for the last few weeks. It's just largely a UI facelift.

It's largely not anything new. They reworked the UI on the long standing Microsoft Remote Desktop app and added "Teams Optimization". I think that last bit was just to make me viscerally angry.

Except you cannot use it to connect directly via RDP from a Windows client to a Windows server ala good old mstsc.

Gave it a shot and downloaded the app on win 11 with the intention of trying to rdp from my laptop to my desktop.

When the app started it asked me to sign in (WTF), entered my Microsoft Account (personal, not azure AD) and was meet with the error message: Personal accounts are not supported (WTF).

Utterly useless app at least for accessing on-prem devices on a home network.

I go back to the good old remote desktop app that comes with windows because that is working flawless.

Of course it doesn't work flawless.

If you have been a good boy and followed Microsoft best practice and configured your Microsoft Account to be passwordless account as I have you of course cannot login because, as you would expect, the RDP app doesn't work with passwordless accounts.

It only like 4 - 5 years since Microsoft introduced passwordless accounts so of course that too little time for an organization with 100K+ developers to implement their own best practices in their own products. sigh.

I think some of what's depicted is what Windows RT should have been. There was lots of talk in the 2011 era about docking your tablet and getting a full desktop experience, and similar things. Some of the video is showing similar scenarios.

I thought back then that the biggest mistake was to not lean more heavily into the existing Win32 ecosystem, which was the one big asset Microsoft had. Imagine if they had spent less time building tablet UIs nobody wanted, and more time working on solutions to let people access the Win32 world from your tablet, which is what I see in this video.

"...connect to the Windows experience they know and love.."

I am not in that target group.

I hope this will be as pleasant and performant as Teams aka how to make your 16-core CPU feel like it is an Intel Atom from 2009.

In classic recent Microsoft style, the name is rubbish, and they are gradually mobile-ifying their UI.

This is the worst explanation of a new product that I've seen since Google Buzz.

Does Windows have a Windows App?

Have you tried the Windows App?

You mean Windows?

No, I mean the app.

Which app?

The Windows app.

Is it in the Windows app store?

Yes, and you can use it to connect to your other devices.

Oh, so like RDP?

Sort of. But you need an MS 365 subscription to use it. Also, you cannot connect to remote desktop services from a Windows OS using Windows App, only MacOS, iOS or Android.

So I should get a Mac or Android to use the full feature set of the Windows App?

Sort of, but you can connect to your Windows 365 or Azure Virtual Desktops using the Windows App on your Windows OS.

So the Windows App on Windows is just for accessing cloud PC subscriptions with Microsoft, but not any of my physical Windows PCs?

Yes. That's why it's called the Windows App.

Azure has already been renamed ‘Entra’. Get with the times.

Well, not quite. Azure AD was renamed to Microsoft Entra.

one more step to a fully-rented, all-in-the-cloud business "PC"

security is easy because you aren't running anything locally, can't save anything locally, probably can't even do true copy/paste

when they want to fire you, the client reboots and you have nothing from your job accessible anymore

and you wonder why Microsoft is so busy building hundreds of Azure datacenters...

Kind of funny that the network computer/thin client vision that 30 years ago was trying to break Microsoft’s stranglehold on the app platform is now being embraced as the future of the Windows experience!

We've had this at the uni twenty years ago, in form of thin Linux workstations, connecting over XDMCP to a central server which served individual desktop sessions over the network.

This is the most confusing branding since Xbox One.

Intel Core 2 Duo, Dual Core CPU..

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