UWP vs Windows 10 Enterprise Challenge

Julia Boichentsova
Jul 21, 2017 · 2 min read

Choosing Universal Windows Platform for your app sounds like a very good option: the app will work on different types of Windows devices, you can make it free, or paid, with trial, you can create different types of in-app purchases, and distribute the app via Microsoft Store, which should provide users the best experience to get the app.

And everything is good and easy until you want to distribute your app to the organisations.

Many organisations use Enterprise version of Windows. Microsoft provides specification of how to deploy apps in the Enterprise. And even more options here. Looks like everything is clear. But when you start to use it in real life, the picture is not so bright as it seemed.

Sometimes organisations do not know what is Windows Store for Business or Education. Sometimes it is very hard or even impossible to get to their system administrator in order to help install our app on some of the devices to run a pilot. In some cases system administrators disabled Store app or installed version of Windows that does not have Store at all. Or when we deal with a non-tech people from the organisation and tell that they can get our app from the Store, but they don’t even know that Store exists.

Policies in some organisations require to wipe user account totally every day at the end of the day. And they don’t want to download the app every time from the Store, they want it to be installed somehow in a different way..

Another story is with getting their devices to be updated, because our app requires minimum Windows 10 version 1607. Some still use Windows 8.1 or earlier versions of Windows and they are happy with them. Some can not update, because Windows Update Service does not let them or this feature has been disabled for them and they need to contact their system administrator, which is a separate issue described above.

So it is a big challenge to distribute your UWP app to the Enterprises.

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