While Windows 11 will likely be known as the OS with the ability to host the widest range of applications,  from Linux apps to Android apps to old Win32 apps, there is one form of application Microsoft is no longer that enthusiastic about.

Introduced with Windows 10 in 2015, Microsoft is now encouraging UWP developers to transition their apps to their new Windows App SDK. A newly uploaded document provides developers with guidance to do just that.

Microsoft writes:

The Windows App SDK provides a broad set of Windows APIs—with implementations that are decoupled from the OS, and released to developers via NuGet packages. As a developer with a Universal Windows Platform (UWP) application, you can make great use of your existing skill set, and your source code, by moving your app to the Windows App SDK.

Well-know windows developer Rafael Rivera notes that the UWP SDK will only get “bug, reliability and security fixes”.

https://twitter.com/WithinRafael/status/1450276363013787648

Of course, a different way of framing it would be to say the UWP platform is evolving (rather bumpily) to the more open Windows App SDK, but developers who invested in UWP are still miffed that Microsoft appears to have turned it into a dead end.