What this is
Our three Windows desktop apps — FlowVisual, BalaneDisk and WindowNote — are coming to the Microsoft Store and will be available for download there. BalaneDisk is already in the Store, FlowVisual and WindowNote follow.
The direct installer on balane.app stays for all three. The Store is an additional route, not a move.
Why the Store at all
The honest reason shows up in every support ticket we get about Windows installs: the SmartScreen dialog. A desktop app you download as an .exe is suspicious to Windows by default — signed or not, correct or not. Windows shows a blue warning, the actual button hides behind "More info", and a share of people close the window right there. That isn't a trust problem with the app. It's a delivery problem.
Through the Store, that dialog is gone. Two more things come with it that you only appreciate once you have them:
- →The Store delivers updates. No checking, no downloading, no second installer over the first.
- →Clean uninstall through the same channel you installed from.
What changes technically — and what doesn't
It is the same build. No stripped-down Store edition, no second codebase, no different feature set. The Store ships exactly the program the direct installer ships.
One difference is measurable, and it favours the Store: the build obtained directly from balane.app periodically checks for a new version by fetching a file from balane.app — which sends your IP address to our hosting provider. The Store build contains no such check, because the Store delivers updates. One network call fewer that never needed explaining.
What doesn't change: all three apps compute locally. No cloud, no account, no telemetry. The only thing that leaves the device is your licence key on activation — before and after the Store alike.
Licences stay as they are
A key you hold today keeps working after a Store install. Activation happens in the app as before, and switching between the two routes costs you no activation.
Per app:
- →BalaneDisk — everything that is true right now stays free forever: every process, every file, the whole disk, the world map. The subscription buys memory, not features: the full day of history and further back, instead of two hours. €4.99 monthly, €24.99 yearly.
- →WindowNote — free for two windows, with no time limit. If you need more: €14.99 per year for up to three devices. What you have written stays readable and editable even when a subscription lapses.
- →FlowVisual — 14 days free, then a yearly subscription for three seats.
When
BalaneDisk is live. For FlowVisual and WindowNote we're deliberately not naming a date: between "submitted" and "in the Store" sits Microsoft's certification, and how long that takes isn't ours to decide. As soon as an app is in, the Store button appears on its product page — next to the direct download, not instead of it.
And if you don't use the Store
Then nothing changes for you. The Store is blocked on plenty of corporate machines, and some people simply don't want it. The signed installer on balane.app remains an equal second route for all three apps — including the update check, which you can switch off in the settings.
Two routes to the same app. Take the one that gets in your way less.
