Install and service apps through Microsoft Store

Microsoft makes it easy for OEMs to install and service UWP apps on Windows 10 IoT Core through the Microsoft Store.

The key steps required to use Microsoft Store are outlined below.

Step 1 : Setup

A Windows Dev Center account and sign-up for the OEM preinstall program are required to use this feature. See Account types for information on individual accounts and company accounts. You can sign-up for a developer account at Register as an app developer.

If you need multiple users to be managing the portal or if you need Special capabilities in your App, See Associate Azure Active Directory with your Dev Center account for more details.

OEM Preinstall Program

You should enroll for the Microsoft Store OEM Preinstall program to be able to download the Store signed appx bundle that you can pre-install in your device.

The steps for the enrollment are

1. Sign into the Dev Center Portal and reserve a name for your app.
2. Declare capabilities in your app package manifest. If you are declaring any restricted capabilities, you will need to supply a business justification in the submissions options section of your Partner Center at the time of submission. More information on different capabilities, their categories, and how to declare them can be found here.

Step 2 : Publish UWP App to Microsoft Store

If everything looks correct, you can proceed with app submissions.

Key elements to note here are:

• Visibility : It is recommended that you hide your app in the store by setting the visibility appropriately.
• TargetDeviceFamily : TargetDeviceFamily should be set to Windows.Universal. Both Windows.IoT and Windows.IoTHeadless are not allowed for publishing.

Special Instructions for Headless Apps

In order for headless apps to meet store compliance there needs to be a "head" associated with the app. In order to add this "head" to our headless app we need to:

1. Create a new Blank App (Universal Windows) project in Visual Studio. The target version and minimum version must match the target version and minimum version that are configured for the headless app.

2. Build the new project under release configuration

3. Navigate to <New Project Folder>/bin/<Architecture>/Release/ilc

4. Locate files <blank_app_name>.exe and <blank_app_name>.dll and copy the files to the root directory of your background app project.

5. Include the newly added file to the Visual Studio project and set to "Content"

6. Open the Package.appxmanifest in Code mode (right-click and choose View Code) for the headless app and modify the following:

   • Add the attribute Executable="<Filename of .exe copied to project>.exe" to the element Application. Make sure the capitalization matches the .appxmanifest from the Blank App project.
   • Add the attribute EntryPoint="<Namespace of Blank XAML project>.App" to the element Application. Make sure the capitalization matches the .appxmanifest from the Blank App project.
   • Remove the AppListEntry attribute from the element uap:VisualElements

7. With the app submission created the next step is to package the UWP app and upload to the app submission in Windows Dev Center. For IoT Core it is important to set Generate app bundle to Never. This will allow the Windows Dev Center to generate the correct package for preinstall on IoT Core.

8. Submit the app to begin the certification process. The certification process usually will take 24-48 hours after which the app will either be immediately published or available to publish (based on the publishing option chosen when creating your submission)

Step 3 : Download and install

Now that an app has been published to the Microsoft Store, the app has a store signed version that can be used to preinstall the app on devices.

1. In the Windows Dev Center account click App Management > Current Packages on the left hand navigation bar.

2. Under the most recent App submission click Download Windows 10 package. This will download a zip file containing the app package, the dependency packages, and the license files.

3. See Install your apps on IoT Core device for various options to install the Store apps.

4. To manage the store app updates from your application, see Download and install package updates for your app

Step 4 : Publish Update to Store

Publishing an update to store is simple.

1. In the Windows Dev Center, create a new App Submission for the app to be updated.
2. In Visual Studio, package the app as done earlier in Step 2 in the Publish UWP App to Microsoft Store section.
3. Upload the package to Windows Dev Center under the new submission and submit.
4. After a successful app certification process, the devices will receive the published version as updates.