It's July 2015 and Microsoft is releasing Windows 10. Developers, tired of Windows 8 and the urges to create "Metro-style" apps, are now working on Microsoft's new vision: the Universal Windows Platform (UWP).
“Developers can now build a single app for the full range of Windows 10 devices,” said Terry Myerson , head of Windows at the time. That included Windows 10 Mobile, Xbox consoles, and HoloLens augmented reality devices.
Question: What could go wrong?
Answer: almost everything.
The Universal Windows Platform lasted just 5 years before Microsoft lost its enthusiasm
The first thing that went wrong was the abandonment of Windows Phone, which was officially discontinued in October 2017. A platform without a mobile operating system is not universal despite the name Universal Windows Platform.
Even on Windows 10, UWP faced problems, with development initially limited to the Windows Store, sandboxed access to files and hardware, and a lack of features and capabilities compared to the mature API of Win32 applications.
Having broken up the Windows development ecosystem, Microsoft attempted to bring it back together with Project Reunion , released in 2020, and WinUI 3, which Kevin Gallo, then corporate vice president of the Windows developer platform, described as a “high-performance, Fluent-optimized native UI framework for Windows.” UWP was no longer THE vision, though it is still supported, along with the companion WinUI 2.
Developers who adopted WinUI 3, however, did not have a good time. One developer in a post titled “WinUI3 is really dead! – When should we expect the announcement?” cites several problems, such as reduced activity from Microsoft, lack of adoption from vendors, inability to manage a visual designer for Visual Studio, and poor developer experience.
“The whole architecture behind this is insanely complex, all the views, WinRT, the crazy build system for the WinUI3 code”
Shortly after, Microsoft started talking about the ancient but still beloved Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), which, like Windows Forms, is now open source, and “a great choice.”
On GitHub, the Windows team responded , saying that “WinUI 3 is not dead, in fact I would say I see WinUI as the future of Windows desktop development,” but added that “our platform is not where we want it to be in the future… One of the strongest comments we hear all the time is that Microsoft is not using the same technologies it recommends to developers, and we are working on that as well.”
The last observation is important. Microsoft Office is not a WinUI 3 application. Microsoft Teams is built with web technology.
Meanwhile, Windows Forms and WPF are still working and it seems like the cycle has come full circle since the release of Windows 10 and its promise to change everything.
Although the press releases will range from very select to rare, I said I'd pass...because sometimes the editors hide.
