PuTTY semi-bug store-vs-windows-s

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summary: PuTTY's Windows Store entry refuses to install in "S mode"
class: semi-bug: This might or might not be a bug, depending on your precise definition of what a bug is.
difficulty: taxing: Needs external things we don't have (standards, users etc)
priority: high: This should be fixed in the next release.
absent-in: 0.78
present-in: 0.81

As of 2024-10, we've had one report from a Windows 11 user that the version of PuTTY in the Windows Store won't install in the locked-down Windows S mode.

I (SGT) don't know why that should be. As far as I'd known, a large part of the point of putting things in the Windows Store was that they become installable even in S mode. I hadn't previously heard of the idea that even some Store apps won't install in S mode.

The Store page didn't give any details. It just put a banner at the top reading "This product isn't compatible with Windows in S mode", with a button marked "Switch out of S mode". No explanation of what was incompatible between PuTTY and S mode, or what we can do to fix it.

The only suggestion I was able to find in a web search was a Reddit thread which claimed that this problem applies to any Store app in the form of an MSI installer.

PuTTY's Store entry is indeed an MSI installer – exactly the same one available from our website. However, the user who reported this said that they had successfully installed PuTTY 0.79 from the Store, but couldn't install 0.81. That isn't consistent with the Reddit page, because every version of PuTTY we've ever uploaded to the Store has been in MSI form, including 0.79. So if it was as simple as "MSIs won't work in S mode" then 0.79 should have failed too.

Also, PuTTY 0.81 was in the Store for six months before we received this report. It seems unlikely that nobody would have noticed for that long. So perhaps something changed at the Windows Store end, not at our end?

In any case, the bottom line is: we don't know what the problem is, and until we know that, we can't even try to do anything to fix it. I list this as a "semi-bug" because I have no idea whether PuTTY is the problem or whether Windows is the problem. If anyone knows anything more, we'd like to hear about it.


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Audit trail for this semi-bug.
(last revision of this bug record was at 2024-10-21 20:11:09 +0100)