Comment by ptx
5 days ago
And those new APIs (at least the context menu API) apparently require a "package identity", which requires a signed MSIX installer, which requires paying for a code-signing certificate, unless I'm missing something in the docs.
That is because of what people claiming UWP is dead, haven't gotten the whole picture.
UWP as separate subsystem, yes it is deprecated, and no one should be using it, although Microsoft was forced to introduce .NET 9 support on UWP, because many refuse to move away from UWP into WinUI 3.0, given the lack of feature parity.
Now, when WinRT was made to also work on Win32 side, it also brought with it the concept of package identity, which forms a part of the whole app isolation from UWP similar to Android, now on Win32 as well, hence the MSIX.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/secauthz/app...
On the specific case of the context menu, it depends on what is being done,
https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2021/07/19/extend...
You can work around app identity when using the suggested alternative of unpackaged Win32 apps with sparse manifests.