Porting apps to Windows 10

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This section describes how to port your existing app to the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) where you can create a single Windows 10 app package that your customers can install onto all types of devices. Your app will benefit from exciting new hardware, great monetization opportunities, a modern API set, adaptive UI controls, and a range of input modalities including mouse/keyboard, touch, and speech.

The Windows Runtime (WinRT) is the technology that lets you build Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps. You can refer to What's a Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app? for more background on WinRT and UWP apps.

This porting guide explains the differences between your current app's technology and the Universal Windows Platform (UWP). Once the path between technologies is understood, you'll be able to dive into the rest of the Developer Center, which is a comprehensive resource for developing UWP apps. A good way to do that, when you're ready, is to start with How to develop a Store app.

Topic Description
Move from desktop to UWP Choose one of several options to bring UWP experiences into your Win32 and .NET desktop applications.
Move from Windows Runtime 8.x to UWP If you have a Universal 8.1 app—whether it's targeting Windows 8.1, Windows Phone 8.1, or both—then you'll find that your source code and skills will port smoothly to Windows 10 or Windows 11. With Windows, you can create a UWP app, which is a single app package that your customers can install onto every kind of device.
Move from Windows Phone Silverlight to UWP If you’re a developer with a Windows Phone Silverlight app, then you can make great use of your skill set and your source code in the move to Windows 10. With Windows 10 or Windows 11, you can create a UWP app, which is a single app package that your customers can install onto every kind of device.
Convert your web app to a PWA You can now convert your web app to a Progressive Web App (PWA) will work on any platform, including UWP! The PWA Builder tool will generate the necessary manifest for you. This replaces the Hosted Web Apps (HWA) bridge.