(Original 04/21/24): There is a change Microsoft has made to downloading Store apps. Until now, if you went to the website of an app and then clicked on install, the store app would open. Do it now, for example with ours Desk modder app the download begins immediately.
The app is downloaded as Deskmodder.de Installer.exe and is just 700 KB in size. This means the app can then be installed locally and at some point. The rest itself is loaded during installation. The Store app itself is not required.
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However, it is up to you to click on “Open Store App” on the website and download the app directly from the store. There is no difference. It doesn’t matter whether you install the app manually via Adguard or via the website. Rudy Hyun writes:
“Why do we have a second Install button? It was necessary to ensure that the installation was initiated by a user and not a malicious script, which is a risk when using deep links. To improve the usability and increase the conversion rate for our ISVs, we have been running an experiment over the last five months: instead of launching the store via a deep link and opening a mini-window simulating an installer, why not extract this code and use it in a standalone installer? That's exactly what we did. We created an undocked version of the store that uses the same logic and code as the larger application and manages prerequisites, permissions, downloads, and installations in the same way. However, this time it has been packaged into a much smaller and undocked executable.”
As an addendum: Rafael Rivera had just before that ranted, that this is a wrapper equipped with telemetry. But it's just a local installer.
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(Update April 22, 2024): “Hoarding” the app installers doesn’t help
As tests have shown, saving the app installers does nothing. Apps must be downloaded from the web immediately because they are temporary. This means that if you run it later, the Store app will open as usual. And you then have to install the app from the store as usual.
An experiment that DK2000 and I did shows that the SHA value of the downloaded *.exe is different. In the end, you can still store the installer if you want to carry out a new installation, for example. But then it works as usual via the Store app.