What do you mean "drop support for games"? I don't think Microsoft is thinking of people not playing games on their future Windows devices/PCs. I think this is more about MS gradually phasing out direct Win32 support from their OSes, similarly like you can't run 16bit Windows or MS-DOS applications and games on modern Windows directly (but have to use e.g. DOSBox instead).

I presume powerhouse PC gaming can exist also without Win32, be it UWP or whatever it is called. The main question at that point then is, can those modern (UWP?) Windows applications and games be obtained also outside of Windows Store? That is what decides the fate of competing stores like Steam, GOG, Origin etc.

Too bad it appears installing Linux has become gradually more and more complicated on PCs (e.g. SecureBoot/UEFI?), and I am sure there are already now "Windows" devices where you can't replace or multiboot it with Linux.

While there are some devices where you cannot disable secureboot or replace the boot signature, you can do one or both on the vast majority of them. And that's the intention - you sign your kernel and boot loader with your signature, then replace the preinstalled secureboot signature with yours - now your machine can't be fucked with by someone else having a generic boot disc/stick (assuming your machine is otherwise properly locked), it has to have your signature.

UEFI hasn't been a problem for a long time.

You forgot that applications like DOSBox aren't allowed in the store because MS limit the types GNU licences allowed.

Except for the hazle that is sometimes when you are to replace the graphic card. You need to disable secure boot, clear it keys, then replace the graphic card, then reload Secure Boot keys then re-enable it. And all because Secure Boot see the new graphics card as an unauthorised device.

Well, yeah. The intention is to be a barrier to hinder people from fucking with your machine without your permission. If you lock your door, the lock needs to be unlocked before the door is opened. The lock is secureboot, and the door is "add potentially intrusive hardware" and "boot up another OS to read data since we can't log in to the installed one", the key is your signature. In most cases, however, you're able to let the door stay unlocked (ie. disable secureboot).

That would be where virtualization comes in, how well that performs with demanding games is anyone's guess. Most likley though it won't perform as well as it would natively.

From what I have read, at-least in regards to Windows 10 S no apps will run outside of the store even if they are UWP. All apps on Windows 10 S have to be signed by the store in-order to run. So if "S mode" has the same restriction then it would be harder to have competition.

Now it's possible Steam / GOG Galaxy could have some kind of UWP version placed in the MS store that support UWP games. I don't see why MS wouldn't allow that if they are allowing (or working with) Apple to release a UWP version of iTunes. From what I read you only have to pay MS if you use the built in store payment methods, if you build your own then you don't have to pay MS if you sell something via an app in the store.

Now if it is in their best interest to do that is another matter, they would be helping MS push their own store and UWP more than themselves. It may be better to look to a more open platform like Linux.

But yes you can technically release a UWP version outside of the store on any store you want... but that doesn't mean MS will allow it to function on all versions of Windows.
Sad but probably true.

If GOG offered Galaxy through the Windows store, and then download the games through Galaxy, that should work. That's pretty much what happens when you install Ubuntu or openSUSE for WSL from the store.

doing the same as well, running CentOS7 on my servers and laptop

The only downside is only 181 out of my 759 games will run on linux

I had to chuckle a bit (not @ you, but @ him). Apparently he doesn't understand well enough yet decided to boast about his complaint.

Fedora 27 here. I decided to make the whole transition shortly into Windows 10, and each update has brought little reason to look back at Windows. I have about 110± games that work naively, but Wine sure does a good job. My bigger issue would be finding a Foobar2000 equal that works with all the exotic formats I have. Which so far, I've found nothing that works quite how it should.

(Read: Opening/reading compressed archives shouldn't be an addon.)

So is it impossible to e.g. download an "UWP" (or, whatever the modern format is that is not Win32) application from the internet directly with e.g. a browser, and use it then? Do they all have to somehow go through the Windows Store, even freeware utilities and such?

So how do hobbyist software developers develop new "UWP" software? How do they install their developed application on several machines in order to test it out?

This is all still a bit unclear to me. The strength of PCs has always been that pretty much anyone can become a software developer and release software for the system, but now I am unsure if this "UWP" somehow complicates things a lot, especially for non-professional programmers? Can't you, say, make an UWP application that only you and your closest friends use, without officially releasing it through the Windows Store?

So not like in e.g. Android devices where you CAN install software with apk installers, without necessarily having to go through the Google Play store? That's how e.g. Humble Bundle sells Android games through their own store (and an optional Android client), directly competing with Google Play as a digital store.

I think there is a version of winrar for linux is there not? It covers pretty much any filetype you can think of

I am using Linux and haven't really seen a reason to downgrade to Win10. :)

Writing that felt good even tho I occasionally (once a month) dual boot to Win7

why do you put audio files in an archive? using standard audio compression like mp3, opus, flac or whatever is way more efficient.

that being said, my audio player doesn't seem to support it. However browsing inside of the archive in the file manager and queue the audio file for playback does work.

It is possible to sideload applications, but I don't know the details.

EDIT: Microsoft says: That is, during development and testing, the developer sets Windows to development mode, in order to not bother with having to trust certificates. When later publishing to the store, Microsoft signs it with their certificate instead. If the application is not published, but released solely inside an organisation, the machines probably already have your organisation's certificate installed and can be set to the middle setting to sideload applications with trusted certificates.

Ok, so could e.g. Steam or GOG release one certificate that all the users need to install on their device, that covers all the games those non-Windows Store stores cover? Or would the customers have to install a new certificate for each game they buy from a non-Windows Store? How onerous task is it to "install a certificate" anyway, is it like one click or can it be automated (without having to use Windows Store), or does one need to go to the depths of Control Panel or whatever to enter a certificate there etc.?

Just trying to understand this at some level. It seems kinda complicated to how e.g. the Android world seems for an end-user: by default you can install stuff only through the Google Play store, but if you want to "sideload", you just flip one switch on the options of your device ("Allow 3rd party software blaa blaa blaa"), and then you can install applications from apk packages you've downloaded from the internets or the Humble Bundle store or whatever. The end user doesn't have to care about the defails, e.g. are those apk packages "signed with a certificate" and do they install a certificate for you and whatever. It all just works, magic!