Distibution/Installation of Metro Apps

[Dos_Box]

It seems that Microsoft are doing a bit of an Apple here and only allowing the sale and distribution of Metro Apps via their new App Store (Still unavailable on the developers preview). Bu what about internally developed applications. What if someone here wanted to develop an app and distribute it for free? The one reason I love Windows is the relative freedom of how you can obtain and install software, but to seal off an entire OS almost beggers belief. Has anyone read the T&C's of this yet and can enlighten us perhaps?

Metro apps to be sold only from Microsoft's app store - Computerworld

[EduTech]

Would you not just allow the App to be downloaded for FREE as oppose to putting a price tag against it just like on the AppStore? or am i missing something here

[SYSMAN_MK]

Distributed through the Windows Store. Apps must pass certification so that users download and try apps with confidence in their safety and privacy. Side-loading is available for enterprises and developers.

Primer for current Windows developers

[boscharun]

Its so sad you can only install metro apps from windows store. And the store is not mature enough to allow private apps. Microsoft may be more strict on sensorship and conditions for allowing private apps going by its history. Quite frankly most of the apps that came default with windows 8 customer preview was worthless. Opening the app works, but the lack of close and back buttons make it real hard especially for elderly people to figure out the exit route. Good thing you can un-pin or uninstall metro apps to make the UI clutter free.

[gshaw]

In a bid to become Apple Microsoft could end up alienating the customers that were on their side originally. Can see a lot of developers sticking with Win32 for a while yet.

As for the preview apps, yup many were pointless... like the WordPress one that only lets you view blogs and not update your own one!

Could the Store be Windows Logo Certification mk2

[Arthur]

From Day 2 of MMS 2012...

Deliver Applications To Employee Controlled Devices
This is possible with the new v3 version of Windows Intune. The non-domain joined devices, e.g. Windows RT, are managed via SSL.

Demo
Self service management of user controlled consumer devices by Bill Anderson. ConfigrMgr 2012 SP1 to add support for deploying Metro style apps. They can be built and delivered in house and delivered by ConfigMgr or via the Windows Store via a link. In the latter it uses a link instead of a distribution point. For the former, you can distribute that Metro Style app in the DP and deploy from there as you normally would. In the demo, he makes it available via the ConfigMgr app catalog, so a user can request it via the portal.

Now we go into Windows Intune. We see support for iOS. Android is supported too. We get the option to make an app available for install rather than push. There is a self-service app for ConfigMgr vNext and Intune. It’s an alternative to the MSFT Store. We can push out MSFT Store linked apps. We can also side load an app for bespoke apps and bypass the MSFT store. I haven’t seen any of the competition do this on iOS, etc. At least I haven’t seen it, even if it exists. In this Center app, you can see your devices and their health status. We see the Windows Phone location on a Bing Map in the Center. These devices can’t join a domain but they are "domain trusted". (Souce)

[Arthur]

Click the link to read more...

Deploying Metro style apps to businesses « Windows Store for Developers Blog

Direct distribution of a Metro style app
While the Windows Store will be a great way to deploy apps to business customers, there are apps that IT admins will want to distribute directly to the end-users. This option makes sense for custom and proprietary line-of-business (LOB) apps, or enterprise software purchased directly from an ISV.

So, as either a developer at a private corporation or as a commercial developer, if you decide to build a Metro style app for distribution outside of the Windows Store, you should:

• Validate the technical compliance of the app. The Windows Store certification process helps to deliver trustworthy apps to users. We expect IT admins to demand the same level of quality with the apps that they distribute directly to their users. As mentioned in our previous post on submitting your app to the Windows Store, you can run the Windows App Certification Kit to run the technical certification tests the Windows Store uses, before you submit the app to the Store. It is critical that you run the Windows App Certification Kit on any app before it is distributed to customers. This helps ensure that the app meets the minimum technical expectations of a Metro style app, helps to define consistent experiences, and validates that the app will behave as expected on future versions of Windows. The Dev Center has more information on how to validate your Metro style app with the Windows App Certification Kit.
• Sign the app. To deploy the package to end-users, your app must be appropriately signed by a Certificate Authority that is trusted by the target PCs. The Publisher Name in the package manifest must match the Publisher Name in the certificate that is used to sign the app. Again, check the Dev Center for additional details on signing the app via Visual Studio.

We recommend that you get your app packages signed with a certificate purchased from a Trusted Authority, and Windows trusts many Certificate Authorities without any additional configuration. If the certificate is from one of these already trusted authorities, you don’t need to deploy and manage additional certificates to the targeted Windows 8 PCs. You also can use your company's internal Certificate Authority to sign the app. If you choose this option, your IT admins need to ensure that the CA certificate is installed in the Windows images of targeted PCs.

Handing the Metro style app off to an IT Admin
After you make the decision to deliver your Metro style app directly within a corporation (and not through the Store), you need to provide your IT admins the following items to deploy and manage the app:

• The signed app package(s). There may be different packages for different processor architectures (x86, x64, and/or ARM).
• The packages for any of the dependencies of your app (for example, Microsoft Windows Library for JavaScript)

IT admins should also check the Windows App Certification Kit results to validate that the app passed the technical requirements of a Metro style app. This will help keep the quality and experience high for the end-users the apps are deployed to.

Preparing target PCs for deployment
IT admins need to make sure that they prepare the PCs where they are going to install the Metro style app. This involves procedures that are slightly different depending on the edition of Windows installed, since the management capabilities vary in each edition.

Preparing PCs for sideloading apps on enterprise PCs
Currently, the Consumer Preview and Windows Server 8 Beta are classified as “enterprise sideloading enabled.” This means that when a PC is domain joined, it can be configured to accept non-Windows Store apps from their IT admin. Moving forward, this functionality to install non-Windows Store Metro style apps will be available for Windows 8 Enterprise Edition and Windows 8 Server editions.

On an enterprise sideloading enabled edition, the IT admins needs to verify:

• The PC is domain joined.
• The group policy is set to "Allow all trusted apps to install"
• The app is signed by a CA that is trusted on the target PCs

[GrumbleDook]

Saw this on the MS UK Education blog yesterday.
Windows 8 App Development. Build an app now - Microsoft UK Schools blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs