Windows Store for Business / Windows 11

[Olaf Thyssen]

As an enterprise customer we cannot allow the users to have the Windows Store available, Windows Store for Business was a good solution on Windows 10 as we could fine grained offer certain apps.

Windows 11 doesn't support it anymore, Joe's post from Mid of 2021 is outdated and vage about the future.

If we block the store, the built-in apps won't upgrade anymore unless they are covered in cumulative updates. We cannot offer our favorite apps anymore.

Offering such apps via Intune (synced from Windows Store for Business) requires co-managed devices managed by Intune (at least MECM app workload) but doesn't solve the app updates itself afterwards.

Rigth now this is a show stopper to implement Windows 11 (we have 8000 comaptible devices)

What is the roadmap for such sceanrio ?

[#2]

@Olaf Thyssen Thanks for the shout out on the blog. The new solutions are still in development but should be ready for a private preview soon. The reason the blog hasn't been updated is that the solution isn't quite ready yet. As soon as there's something to share, we will. The timeline and solutions are still the same as last July.

Link to blog: Evolving the Microsoft Store for Business and Education - Microsoft Tech Community

[#3]

Also, keep in mind that the policy to limit users to the "private store" does in fact still work in Win 11 (although I think it's been renamed slightly in the Win 11 ADMXs) and has the same end effect of preventing the users from visiting or using the public store.

[#4]

I know, we've till set this policy which ends up in error "Microsoft Store is blocked, Check with your IT Administrator" ;) as it cannot reach out to the Windows Store for Business.
But this prevents simple apps like Sticky Notes to update

[#5]

Limiting access to the private store only does not block store app updates.

[#6]

Is this somewhere in MS Docs ?
I'm already having second Unify support case about it and engineers aren't sure about it.

[#7]

@Jason_Sandys 

"Also, keep in mind that the policy to limit users to the "private store" does in fact still work in Win 11"

I can tell you right now that it does not, at least when set using the "Require Private Store Only" setting in Intune.  It totally blocks the Microsoft Store on Windows 11 but shows the Private Store on Windows 10.  If you know of another option that I'm not aware of, please share.

[#8]

The updated Store App on Windows 11 doesn't support the Store for Business, that's why policy entirely blocks the store while the Store App on Windows 10 behaves as known.
For Windows 11 devices you need to make the apps available through Intune.
You see them synced in the Apps pane for Windows devices, assign them as e.g. available for enrolled device
Company Portal instead of Store App to be used for installing them

[#9]

+1. The whole point of using the policy is to block users from installing anything from the store that has not been "approved" or curated by the IT admin. It still does this in Win 11. What's different though is that you need to use a different mechanism to make the approved/curated apps available to the end-user since the store for bus/ed does not exist in WIn 11 and that's Intune.

[#10]

That's exactly why we blocked the "public" store and used the Business Store with Win10.
Windows 11 and the "new" store was a game changer as Intune is needed as a workaround and we weren't ready with the Apps workload to be shifted and deploying company portal.
Our Win11 devices are going this route now - while waiting for the replacement of the business feature but you're working on it :)

[#11]

There is no such thing as a new "store". The store is (more or less) as it's always been. Intune isn't a "workaround", though, it is our solution to replace the private/curated list of apps from the store for end users. This is exactly what we are working on.

Moving the workload doesn't disable app deployment from ConfigMgr so there's nothing to be ready for to move this workload to Intune. Also, the Company Portal will show app deployments made from ConfigMgr regardless of the workload shift as well.

[#12]

While moving 15000 clients from on-premises management to Intune you do it slowly and workload by workload, having some pilot for each in between.
The apps workload is one of the easiest to move the slider but then you need to decide what to offer to end users.
They used Windows Store App and Software Center, you need to deploy the company portal if you want to have self-service for apps install available only in Intune (required assignments from Intune are working without CP). ConfigMgr you can switch to use Company Portal as front end.
At the end, the Company Portal will be the only "client" and superseding Store App and Software Center for us.
Just needs effective communication to end users and at the end you always talk about Company Portal regardless the platform.

[#13]

The issue with moving all the store apps to Company Portal or ConfigMgr for us is how do we manually update these apps? We have a number of store apps that don't seem to update frequently enough (Minecraft EE for example) and in the past we just had our users open the store and check for updates manually. This is no longer available in Windows 11, at least not that we are aware of. We also aren't going to turn on the full public store just to make this option available.

[#14]

Is there something new with windows store for bussiness ? @Olaf Thyssen 

[#15]

@ZebW88. Users can use WinGet to initiate app updates. You could easily create a script and wrap it as a Win32 app to do this as well or possibly use a Proactive Remediation to trigger WinGet for this.

[#16]

@JS-80 , I only can tell you what I've been done so far
We had Apps workload already shifted.
This month we shifted the Click-2-Run apps workload.
For that we deployed Company Portal to all machines as it needed to install Office apps from now
I removed all apps from the Windows Store for Business and added them via Intune as "Store App (new)"

ALL Windows users can utilize the Company Portal to install apps from Store, SCCM and Intune, so it doesn't matter anymore if Windows 11 users cannot use the private store.

@Jason_Sandys , why is the icon not pulled from the store while creating the new store app ? Need to manually upload a graphic ....

[#17]

Puling the icon from the Store during creation of the new Store app type is currently being investigated and we hope to add this functionality in the near future.

[#18]

@Jason_Sandys 

Is it wise to disable "Connectors and tokens | Microsoft Store for Business" in Intune already now?
Are those legacy "Microsoft Store for Business app" synchronized to the Intune apps list will disappear automatically this way or will that happen when the Business Store for Business is EOL on MS side?

[#19]

Getting ahead is typically advisable.
As for MSfB apps and assignments in Intune, the exact behavior at retirement time is still being developed so nothing to share specifically other than for folks to expect none of their MSfB apps and assignments to work anymore.