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Putting my VB6 Windows Apps in the Windows 10 Store
- 2-m3m3n70 10y agoI can't find any documentation on it - does anyone know how auto-updates are handled? Do you just release a new version and hope for the best or is there some sort of mechanism to force people to update?
- withinrafael 10y agoUpdates are submitted to the Windows Store, just as you would with any other Store app. After approval, they can be configured to trickle out and/or force install (when available). More information can be found at https://msdn.microsoft.com/windows/uwp/publish/upload-app-packages https://msdn.microsoft.com/windows/uwp/publish/upload-app-pa... You can also create a "flight group" consisting of your test team and only push out more broadly when your internal QA passes. Check out https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/publish/package-flights https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/publish/package... for details.
- cptskippy 10y agoI wonder if someone will publish a FoxPro app.
- withinrafael 10y agoSome nits: * Signing packages is not necessary for normal Store distribution. Skip this step. * Devs must work with Microsoft to get their Centennial apps in the Store right now, it's not a free for all * There's a swath of users that can't use Centennial apps right now due to a bug that will bugcheck the box. General Centennial app take-aways: * Package Win32 apps and throw them in the Store * You get package update, flighting, analytics and feedback hub integration for free * Clean install/uninstall due to virtualized file-system/registry writes
- DaiPlusPlus 10y agoSurely something like the Windows app packaging / sandbox model would be implemented in userland - how the heck could it possibly BSOD a machine? That's just astounding.
- withinrafael 10y agoBoils down to kernel drivers using RtlQueryRegistryValues and expecting to access a trusted system hive, not the Centennial redirected one. Oops.
- Hondor 10y agoGood news about signing. I suppose the store itself somehow signs things? Code signing certificates are prohibitively expensive for small developers at around $500.
- withinrafael 10y agoYou upload an .appx with an associated unique identity (allocated via the Windows Dev Center) and Microsoft manages the signing and such on their end.
- garganzol 10y agoAnd you give 30% cut from revenue. Nice played.
- imron 10y agoYou can get them for under $100 a year from some resellers. I got mine from here http://codesigning.ksoftware.net/ http://codesigning.ksoftware.net/ $84 a year, and as low as $67 a year if you go multi-year.
- oridecon 10y agoIs there a way to confirm app publishers are who they say they are? Once it's available for everybody, what's stopping people from uploading things they don't own?
- withinrafael 10y agoRight now, it requires manual approval and paperwork/signatures. It's not clear if this will change, as solving the problem you brought up doesn't seem possible.
- mkup 10y agoIt can be some system bound to domain names of software developers/vendors (like Let's Encrypt, but for code signing instead of TLS).
- cannam 10y agoI set out to try the Desktop App Converter with some of my own apps the other day, on a laptop that had just been updated with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update. Trouble was, the laptop had Windows 10 Home Edition on it and the Desktop App Converter won't run on that. Or so I deduced after chasing an obscure error message awhile. This seems to be because the converter needs virtualisation support, which isn't included in the Home edition. But it wasn't clear to me whether a £100 upgrade to Win10 Pro would be enough to permit me to run it, or whether I'd need to have Win10 Enterprise which doesn't seem (?) to be a thing a person can just go out and buy. (Something very 90s about all this worrying about the base OS licence level stuff.)
- yuhong 10y agopro should be enough I think.
- jstarks 10y agoI helped work on the converter. That's correct; Pro is sufficient.
- LyalinDotCom 10y agoGood question on which edition supports virtualization, so i looked it up. There is a downloadable table on the compare editions page, its located here in PDF: http://wincom.blob.core.windows.net/documents/Win10CompareTable_FY17.pdf http://wincom.blob.core.windows.net/documents/Win10CompareTa... On there it indicates that Hyper-V comes with Pro or above. So basically only Windows 10 Home doesn't seem to have it.
- joosters 10y agoThat same confusing document also lists 'Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V)' as a feature that doesn't exist on Pro. Is having Hyper-V sufficient? What actually is the 'App-V' feature listed? (It comes in a 'management' section, so it is unclear if it is about managing apps or just letting them run in the first place). Still very confusing...
- jepler 10y ago.. and it requires a capability not currently documented by microsoft(!) https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/br211423.aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/br2114... called "runFullTrust"; which is displayed with an explanation that will be as clear as mud for a user: "Capabilities: • runs full trust mode". Elsewhere in the document, it was stated that only registry and one folder are redirected. So do these apps do away with the beneficial parts of sandboxing that the windows store was supposed to be good for?
- withinrafael 10y agoYes, hence requiring "full trust". Right now, apps are manually reviewed by Microsoft to mitigate abuse. How this works in the open-for-all configuration has yet to be seen. You can see some of the nuances of full trust apps via https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/porting/desktop-to-uwp-root https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/porting/desktop... .
- laurentdc 10y agoAll this is fascinating though. We're talking 18+ years of binary compatibility. Microsoft sure knows how to keep the cash flowing.
- DaiPlusPlus 10y agoUuuuhhhh. There are plenty of games that came out even 10 years ago that ostensibly have the "Designed for Windows XP" (even Vista) badges but that which refuse to run on Windows 10. Often it's to do with how they do graphics, which is a shame, because sandboxing like this is a great way to allow graphics to be shimmed.
- carey 10y agoAlso sometimes because it uses SafeDisc or Securom copy protection, which just won't work on Windows 10: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/08/17/windows-10-safedisc-securom-drm/ https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/08/17/windows-10-safed...
- wolfgke 10y agoWhy can't the studies simply release an official "no-CD" patch to solve this problem? If the really don't have the source code anybody, just ask politely at the scene. ;-)
- benguild 10y agoI love that VB6 is still alive!
- garganzol 10y agoThe amount of Redmond's astroturfing is ridiculous. One cannot even install one's appx on one's own machine unless one signs it with a real certificate. Even Sinclair ZX80 could do that. Appx cannot.
- chinpokomon 10y agoIf you could, it would create an attack vector. From a security point, it's the right way to do things.
- MLR 10y agoYou have to toggle your machine to developer mode first, but you absolutely can.
- rasz_pl 10y agoIn related news the very first thing I do when installing W10 for someone is https://github.com/W4RH4WK/Debloat-Windows-10 https://github.com/W4RH4WK/Debloat-Windows-10 which among other things uninstalls Windows Store. Windows Apps are a joke. Have you seen the "new improved" windows explorer app that just landed in insider builds? Its a frickin phone app Microsoft expects you to use on the desktop.