Microsoft is bringing back a failed app from Windows 8

Microsoft is currently testing a pair of new apps — including one that the company previously decided to stop using due to a lack of interest.

The two new apps are People and File Search. If “People” rings a bell, it should: People is a decades-old app that Microsoft originally launched for Windows 8, then gave up on. Now, it’s back.

Though the new apps appear in Windows, they’re only available for those who also have Microsoft 365 applications installed, such as the Word/Excel/PowerPoint trifecta that accompanies a Microsoft 365 subscription. Right now, Microsoft is testing the new apps as part of the Microsoft 365 Insider program, and for those who have signed up for the Business or Enterprise license.

In a blog post describing the new apps, Microsoft calls these “mini-apps,” which may be just an incidental descriptive term or may signal a new wave of smaller, lightweight applications or widgets. “You’ll recognize familiar flows in these apps, but in a lightning-fast and streamlined format,” Microsoft’s Shilpa Patel wrote. “Plus, you can pin both apps to your taskbar so you always know where to access them, no matter how busy your workspace gets.”

Both of these applications appear to be twists on existing functionality within Windows and Microsoft 365. Microsoft’s existing Office application, for example, includes a list of files that you’ve worked on and has been shared with you. The new File Search app also focuses exclusively on your Microsoft 365 files, but with various filters to narrow it down, plus the ability to search by contents. It might not be quite the semantic search that Microsoft is readying for Windows, but it sounds similar.

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Microsoft says that you can use File Search to preview a document, and then share it. That’s a feature that you should be able to do via other means as well, such as right-clicking the file in File Explorer.

People, back from the dead

People has also been a function that we’ve seen surface repeatedly in the Microsoft ecosystem. Originally, Microsoft developed it as a standalone Windows app for Windows 8, believing that people needed a contact list to store email addresses, phone numbers, and so on. Then there was Windows 10, and the People app that sat alongside Windows Mail and the Calendar app, too. Microsoft then planned to include a “My People” app in 2016’s Windows 10 Creators Update, killed it, then brought it back in 2017, where I talked more about People at length.

People was predicated on the thought that you’d want access to five or so friends in your taskbar, where you could send “shoulder taps” and essentially wave hello with little pop-out emoji from the Taskbar. As it turned out, basically no one (even my colleagues, who I asked to help test) wanted to be part of People, and Microsoft said it would kill off My People in 2019.

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In the meantime, however, Microsoft was moving more purposefully into business. For a time, Outlook became a hub of business activity, where you could track your contacts and calendars. Over time, that evolved into the need to discover where you fit on the “org chart,” and what colleagues could be used as a source of information for collaboration or just a question. Meanwhile, Microsoft Teams became an avenue for business collaboration.

It’s that angle that Microsoft’s latest revision of the People app addresses. Again, People presents a list of colleagues, who can be clicked on for more information or just to find out what their responsibilities are. You can also search by job title or department.

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However, People is designed to be able to select a coworker and to then send them a quick Teams message. The idea is that you’ll prefer to do this from your Taskbar instead of navigating to another dedicated app…like Teams.

Will these new mini-apps take off, or will People’s 2025 update fizzle like it did before? History isn’t optimistic.