Universal Apps vs Desktop Apps

I'm not a Windows developer (or even a user), but soon enough I will have to build a native Windows application. Knowing almost nothing, here's my dilemma - should it be a universal app or a desktop app? Mobile devices are of no concern, an app already exists for those (I believe written with Xamarin).

I think my biggest concern is long-term support from Microsoft. Will universal apps go the way of dodo in the long run? Windows phone market share certainly isn't growing. Are there any other things I should be concerned about?

The first question is "Are you going to support pre-Windows 10 OS's"? If yes, then go Desktop app.

Secondly, if you are going to be in control of distribution, there isn't a downside to just compiling as a Desktop app. Now, if you have a mobile version, it might make sense to merge the two versions as a Universal app (or better: Separate out the platform code into different dependencies so one codebase handles both desktop and mobile).

Universal App is more of a design philosophy than a technology decision. If you are completely ok with abandoning the 20+ years of windows history that preceded it, then go Universal App. (Wow, I actually made that sound like a good thing.)

I wouldn't worry about Microsoft dropping support. They're not like Apple. MS have been supporting things in their OS that should have been dropped decades ago (Winsock 1.1, for example).

If you are truly concerned about longevity, then you could look into something more cross-platform, like QT. Truth be told, I don't think anyone can accurately predict what will still be around 20 years from now. Hopefully we'll all be retired by then.

Universal Apps are housed in an isolated container, and MS even has a mechanism that will port normal desktop apps into Universal Windows Platform apps. Scott Hanselman wrote about this here.

krogen said:

I'm not a Windows developer (or even a user), but soon enough I will have to build a native Windows application. Knowing almost nothing, here's my dilemma - should it be a universal app or a desktop app? Mobile devices are of no concern, an app already exists for those (I believe written with Xamarin).

I think my biggest concern is long-term support from Microsoft. Will universal apps go the way of dodo in the long run? Windows phone market share certainly isn't growing. Are there any other things I should be concerned about?

Click to expand...

You're asking questions but it all depends on what you're doing. Windows apps kinda suck due to rolling out updates and how much processing do you plan on doing on the "client" side. I am working on porting code from windows apps over to MVC5 asp.net. We have employees that often work remotely away from our local intranet so have VPN connections often over a cell network. The current windows apps send a LOT of data back and forth which on a cell network is terrible. In our case the answer is non of the above listed options. So I'd like to give you yet another option Think long and hard about what you plan on doing. MVC5 asp.net apps have super easy ways to port them into apps for other systems. universal apps can also make the web apps. So yeah universal is a decent option but if you only plan on using one then don't bother with universal.