Windows 11 will be released next Tuesday, October 5, and with its release, Microsoft hopes to make many changes to its venerable operating system. These include a more centered, rounded design, new features for managing screen real estate, a new Start menu, and a revamped Microsoft Store that will support a greater variety of apps.

In June, the company launched this revamped Microsoft Store with a preview of a visually redesigned Microsoft Store app for Windows that gives developers the freedom to publish and monetize their apps to the store. Developers can now publish any type of app (including Win32 apps and web apps) to the Microsoft Store, and if they have their own commerce platform (i.e., in-app purchases), Microsoft takes no margin.

And today (September 28), the company confirmed in a blog post that this revamped Microsoft Store will launch with Windows 11 on October 5.

Microsoft also announced that third-party app storefronts like the Epic Games Store (of Apple vs Epic Games fame) and the Amazon Appstore will be listed and discoverable in the Microsoft Store for Windows Both Epic and Amazon have announced that they will be launching app storefronts within the Microsoft Store in the coming months, and other PC app storefronts such as Steam will also likely find their way onto the Microsoft Store's digital shelves. [The Microsoft Store has recently acquired apps for Discord, Tiktok, VLC, and browsers like Opera and Yandex, which should be nothing but good news for Windows users. [One of the main advantages of having a Windows PC connected to the Internet is that you can download almost any program you want, regardless of whether it is available at the Microsoft Store or any other app store. However, that does not mean that the built-in Windows app store can be as esoteric and useless as it has always been.

It would be great to see the Microsoft Store in Windows grow into something more people actually want to use. Opening it up to more apps is a great way to do that, and it will be great to see Microsoft welcome more big names to the store front before Windows 11 launches next week.