Windows Store Apps: Getting Started

Currently if you want to build a Windows Store Apps player, you have to do it on Windows 8 or Windows 8.1 (Windows 8.1 is needed if you’re targeting SDK 8.1) , because, this may change in the future. On Windows Store Apps platform we don’t use Mono, we use Microsoft’s .NET together with WinRT. This allows you to debug your scripts with Visual Studio.

Unity will support three Windows Store Apps targets X86, X64 and ARM.

The player log is located under <user>\AppData\Local\Packages\<productname>\TempState.

Things that are not yet supported:

• Network classes, WWW is supported though
• To access C# classes from JS or Boo, you need to set Compilation Overrides to None or Use Net Core partially (Read more here PlayerSettings)
• Fog doesn’t work on devices with feature level < 9.3, you need to implement it manually, see http://files.unity3d.com/tomas/Metro/Examples/MyCustomFog.shader

Requirements when targeting Windows SDK 8.0:

• Windows 8 (Note: Windows 8 N users should install this patch http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30685)
• Visual Studio 2012 (11.0.50727.1 or higher) or Visual Studio 2013 + Windows SDK 8.0 (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh852363.aspx)

Requirements when targeting Windows SDK 8.1:

• Windows 8.1 (Note: Windows 8.1 N users should install this patch http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40744)
• Visual Studio 2013 (12.021005.1 or higher)

Before you can proceed you need to acquire Windows 8 developer license, this can be done in two following ways:

• Build an empty Windows Store application from Visual Studio and deploy it, if you’re doing this first time, a dialog window for getting developer license should open, follow the steps.
• See this link - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh974578.aspx#getting_a_developer_license_by_using_visual_studio

Helpful links

• Generic Windows Store Apps samples for Windows 8.0 http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsapps/Windows–8-app-samples–4d76cbbf
• Generic Windows Store Apps samples for Windows 8.1 http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/windowsapps/Windows–8-Modern-Style-App-Samples
• Generic forum for Windows Store Apps http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsapps/en-US/home?category=windowsapps
• Unity forum dedicated to Windows Store Apps and Windows Phone 8 http://forum.unity3d.com/forums/50-Windows-Development