14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has silently discontinued Microsoft Translator app for Windows 8.1, after previously claiming that only Windows 8, Windows Phone 7.1 and Windows Phone Phone 8 would be impacted
According to reports, the official Translator app no longer works on Windows 8.1, with the download links also removed from the Microsoft Store. Devices where the app was already installed can no longer perform translations and once they remove it, getting it back isn’t possible.
The Microsoft Store listing for the app indicates that at least Windows 10 is required to install Microsoft Translator, which does confirm that Windows 8.1 isn’t supported anymore.
Microsoft pulling the plug on app support for Windows 8.1 isn’t surprising. Not only that the company wants more users to make the switch to Windows 10, but Windows 8.1 itself only has a small market share, which means that the company has little to no reason to continue investing in apps.
Windows 10 features
NetMarketShare data for June 2018 indicates that Windows 8.1 was running on 4.95 percent of all desktop systems across the world, enough to secure the fourth place after Windows 7, Windows 10, and macOS 10.13. Leader Windows 7 has a market share of 41.74 percent.
Windows 8.1 no longer receives mainstream support since January 2018, which means that no new features are being developed for the operating system. As part of the current extended support branch, Windows 8.1 only receives security patches resolving vulnerabilities in its code.
Microsoft Translator comes to Windows 10 with a long list of features, including support for more than 60 languages, real-time conversation translation features, Cortana integration, offline support for downloading languages and running translations without an Internet connection, and Windows Ink integration to translate text written by hand.
The Windows 10 version will obviously continue getting more improvements, so users running this latest version of the OS aren’t impacted by this silent retirement.