Microsoft starts taking submissions of Desktop Bridge apps for the Windows Store

In addition to releasing the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, Microsoft today released the corresponding software development kit (SDK) for this new version of Windows. This will allow developers to build applications that use the newest components of the operating system. Apps built with this SDK — build 14393 — can now be submitted for inclusion in the Windows Store. But Microsoft also said today that — for the first time — it’s taking Store submissions of applications that are built with the Desktop Bridge (Project Centennial), which helps developers turn existing .NET and Win32 desktop applications into Universal Windows Platform (UWP) applications.

“While we build the pipeline into the Windows Store to publish these apps, our team will work directly with developers to get their converted apps and games into the Windows Store,” Kevin Gallo, vice president of the Windows Developer Platform at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post.

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Microsoft has set up a dedicated form for submitting Desktop Bridge apps for inclusion in the Windows Store, Gallo wrote.

This isn’t the only Windows Bridge Microsoft has offered; there are also tools for iOS apps and Silverlight apps. Microsoft killed its Project Astoria tool for porting Android apps to Windows 10.

The key tool for converting Win32 and .NET apps to UWP apps is the Desktop App Converter, which Microsoft unveiled at the Build developer conference in March and then released in preview in April. Documentation is here. To install the tool, you’ll need Windows 10 Pro or Windows 10 Enterprise, with build 14388 and up. You can download it here. Open-source code samples are here.

The up-to-date SDK is available here.