SpiffinJay

you could try the workaround by walt farrel posted here:

V2 needs windows 10 build 2004 or newer no windows 7 support

You need to link it to C:\Users\<your user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityPhoto2.exe instead replace <your user> with your windows user name in your case i see from the first image it is marcb so C:\Users\marcb\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityPhoto2.exe I hope this helps you.

I can tell you that many developers are starting to use MSIX even when Microsoft wont allow the installer to ask for a drive/location to install to because you need to change that for all new apps in windows settings which is stupid that microsoft did it this way but that way they can make sure you dont install the application to a directory (or multiple directories) where the windows "sandboxing" would break and cause security issues or worse you causing your whole user directory be sandboxed breaking the user account completely. I dont like the MSIX format because its a Microsoft Store format and may break at any point due to changes Microsoft makes to windows or their store software so a "legacy exe/msi" would be great for installing in these cases and for installing to a different directory and for the Enterprise users with high security limits on their systems also offline activation would be great but i understand that it is a piracy prevention thing to have one time online activation (unlimited activations but only needed to be done once per install). (I will use the V2.0 software but i hate that i had to enable the dreaded windows store to install the software eww)

People are overreacting. Serif has always done it this way. All non subscription software at one point did it this way. The launch discount is the discount you get as a loyal customer and new customers get the same discount at the same time because they are new customers. People seem to hate the idea that everyone gets the software at the same price but in reality this is good as more users mean more bugs are found and fixed and more of other creative software adds support for the affinity suite.

I have not used any surface devices but you can try with the trial version for 30 days and if the suite works on that device you can then buy the full license and activate the software there is no limits on the trial other than the 30 day limit.

that makes sense if they try to do something unexpected with the alias which they shouldnt do so propably their implementations are done in a non compliant way or they look at the alias and go directly to what is aliased which the sandboxing wont allow to be executed. just a hunch

Isnt there currently some sort of issues with those aliases. I hope you can fix those issues some people seem to be having with those aliases currently.