Microsoft’s annual recap for 2025 has arrived, but instead of a “Microsoft Wrapped” filled with nostalgia and fun statistics like users might see from Spotify or PlayStation, the company opted for a safer, more polished approach. The official “2025 in Review” post from Microsoft Store Vice President Giorgio Sardo shines a spotlight on the positives — faster performance, new features, and increased app availability — but avoids addressing some of the more controversial decisions the company made this year. The end result feels like a celebration sprinkled with selective memory, showcasing progress while glossing over mistakes.
Highlighting the Bright Spots
To Microsoft’s credit, the Store has undergone noticeable improvements this year. Updates to app uninstallation options, better search capabilities, and a complete revamp of the navigation experience have made it one of the most usable versions since its Windows 10 debut. The Store is also faster, sleeker, and clearly more stable than before. New additions, like a dedicated Themes section and an AI hub for discovering artificial intelligence-related apps, help modernize the platform and make it feel relevant in the Windows 11 ecosystem.
Another major milestone for 2025 has been the availability of popular third-party apps. Software previously missing from the Store — Adobe Creative Cloud, Slack, Spotify, and Discord — is now fully supported. This alone brings the Microsoft Store closer to parity with Apple’s App Store or Google Play, marking a major turnaround from the barren app catalog that once frustrated users. With speed improvements and consistent updates, Microsoft has finally transformed its Store into a viable, mainstream hub for Windows users.
Personalization and User Experience
Giorgio Sardo emphasized that personalization was a major focus for the Microsoft Store this year. The platform now tailors its home page to each user more intelligently, suggesting apps, themes, and tools based on previous downloads and interests. This is a small but meaningful shift that makes the experience feel more dynamic and helpful. Sardo also highlighted special events hosted within the Store throughout the year, such as sales tied to major game releases and productivity showcases.
Yet, while these updates paint a picture of steady progress, there’s something missing from this rosy narrative. The year-in-review blog post carefully avoids addressing several unpopular decisions and controversies that stirred frustration among users in 2025.
What Microsoft Didn’t Mention
One of the biggest omissions from Microsoft’s recap is the quiet removal of the option to disable automatic app updates. In earlier versions of Windows, users could opt-out of automatic updates if they wanted to keep an older, more stable app version. That flexibility is now gone. While automatic updates are often beneficial, many users — particularly developers, IT professionals, and creators — prefer to control when and how apps update to prevent compatibility issues.
Another glaring absence is the closure of Microsoft’s Movies & TV storefront. Once part of the Store ecosystem, it officially stopped new purchases in mid-2025. While existing users can still play previously bought films and shows, the loss signifies Microsoft’s slow withdrawal from digital entertainment sales. The topic was entirely absent from Sardo’s recap, despite its major impact on longtime customers who invested in Microsoft’s media ecosystem. The end of support for the Windows 10 Mobile Store — a quiet but symbolic moment — was likewise ignored, even though it marked the official close of a decade-long chapter in Microsoft’s mobile ambitions.
Controversy Around Microsoft’s Apps
Beyond platform updates, several Microsoft-made apps also came under scrutiny this year. Chief among them is the “new” Outlook, which Microsoft heavily promoted as a native Windows experience. However, developers and users criticized it as little more than a web app dressed in a native interface. Worse still, Microsoft disabled the old Mail & Calendar app, leaving many users feeling forced to switch. Critics argue that this undermines Microsoft’s message about building high-quality, native apps for Windows 11.
When a company known for setting design standards begins cutting corners, it sends a troubling message to developers about what’s acceptable on the platform. These concerns didn’t make it into the recap either, unsurprisingly.
The Microsoft Store Awards Controversy
The 2025 Microsoft Store Awards became another flashpoint this year. Many fans and developers questioned the legitimacy of the results, claiming that the winning apps seemed selected more for their emphasis on AI rather than actual design quality or innovation. The biggest eyebrow-raiser was Castle Craft being named “Game of the Year” over more prominent and polished titles.
Curiously, Sardo’s year-in-review piece completely omits any mention of Castle Craft — despite the storefront celebrating it as the award’s winner just weeks earlier. Instead, the review highlights other apps like Raycast, Noteastic, DotVista, and RunCat 365. This inconsistency hasn’t gone unnoticed, with many suspecting the omission was intentional to downplay the backlash surrounding the awards.
The Bigger Picture
While the Microsoft Store’s overall state has undeniably improved, Microsoft’s selective storytelling around its 2025 recap paints a carefully curated image. By focusing almost entirely on innovation and community engagement while omitting controversy, the company risks appearing disconnected from its user base’s legitimate concerns.
Still, it’s hard to deny that the Store’s usability, reliability, and update cadence are better than at any point in the past. Microsoft’s growing partnerships, expansion into AI apps, and continued efforts to simplify app management make 2025 a milestone year for the platform’s evolution. Yet, the path forward must include an honest acknowledgment of setbacks — something users would appreciate as much as the newly added features.
In short, the Microsoft Store of 2025 is strong, functional, and finally competitive. But much like its yearly recap, the story feels incomplete. A truly transparent look back would include both the wins worth celebrating and the lessons learned from unpopular moves. Until then, Microsoft’s “year in review” remains a positive but partial reflection of a company still learning how to balance progress with accountability.
