Yesterday, Microsoft removed the books category from the Microsoft Store and with it the ability to purchase or rent any ebooks.

As ZDNet reports, Microsoft took the decision in a bid to "streamline the strategic focus of the Microsoft Store," but it's going to annoy customers who purchased or rented ebooks through the store. The ability to read the ebooks you bought will end in July, but Microsoft is set to give you a full refund. Any existing pre-orders will be automatically canceled.

Refunds will happen as soon as ebooks can't be accessed anymore in July, with the money sent to your original payment method if it's still valid. If it isn't, then the equivalent amount of credit will be added to your Microsoft account to spend elsewhere on the Microsoft Store. Any purchases made with a gift card or credit will also appear as credit on your account.

Microsoft allowed you to add mark-ups and annotations to the books you bought, but these will also disappear along with access in July. As a way of apologizing for this, any mark-ups or annotations made in books purchased before April 2 will qualify you for an additional $25 of store credit.

The official line may be this is a store streamlining exercise, but you do have to wonder how many people relied on the Microsoft Store for their supply of ebooks. It's a market dominated by Amazon and its Kindle line of ereaders, and it's unlikely Microsoft could ever compete with that regardless of the investment made. Will ebooks be missed from the Microsoft Store? Probably not beyond the customers who are losing access to their ebooks in July. ZDNet also suggests it is related to Microsoft's switch to a Chromium-based Edge web browser, which before the switch was touted as providing a superior reading experience.