Uploading App Packages to the Windows Store

There are a bunch of rules to follow when uploading packages to the Windows Store.

One hard requirement is a "Package URL" which is a versioned, secure URL pointing to the app package (MSI/EXE) hosted on your CDN.

An example could be https://windowscottoneyejoe/downloads/1.1/setup.exe

When a customer installs a package, the Store downloads the package from the URL. Good CDN practices should be followed - to ensure the URL is performant, reliable and available in your relevant target markets.

(Sidebar - Google have some great recommendations on CDN best practices (they also have their own commercial CDN products known as Cloud CDN and Media CDN, other vendors offer CDN services too, including CloudFlare).

Note: as your application versions evolve, you may need to update the package URL. This is done by using the Update submission option in Partner Center to specify the new package URL.

Windows Store Apps - Pricing

If you are a Windows Store developer, you have a few pricing options: Free, Freemium (optional in-app purchases, Subscription or Paid (one time payment).

Quick Guide to the GDK

The GDK, or Game Development Kit, enables developers to develop games on Xbox and Windows.

The Whats New page covers new developments to the GDK.

Do Not Commit csproj.user file

This contains per developer, per machine settings.

For example, when you last run a Debug session, it will have a record of what you selected in the dropdown next to the Run/Debug button under _lastSelectedProfile. This may also contain user-specific folder paths as well.

What is Ready to Run (R2R) Compilation in Visual Studio?

Ready-to-run compilation is a feature in .NET that improves startup performance by compiling them in Ready-to-run format. This is a form of AOT (ahead-of-time) compilation that reduces work for the JIT compiler as the application loads. Your binary contains IL and precompiled IL. It only works if you target specific environments such as Linux x64 or Windows x64.

Rust uses C++

Tales of the end of C++ are greatly exaggerated. Rust uses C++ in the shape of LLVM which is built in C++. Sure, the Rust compiler (rustc - which was initially OCaml'd and rewritten in Rust) is mostly Rust with some legacy bits in C++, but the backend (LLVM) used for code generation is C++ code. The standard library has some C bindings too, but that's by the by.

The Return of C++ Tools in Visual Studio

Today - C# programmers must embrace C++ development tools. There is No Alternative.  C++ tools container the valuable link.exe to create standalone .exe files.  Publishing .NET programs as standalone EXEs needing no runtime need this toolkit. Install it! Give up that 1.5 GB of space for some C++ tooling!