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Install tools for preview and experimental channels of the Windows App SDK

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Configure your development computer by installing the appropriate tools to develop apps for Windows with the preview and experimental channels of the Windows App SDK.

Note

This topic is for the preview and experimental release channels of the Windows App SDK—see Windows App SDK release channels. For the stable channel, there's also Install tools for the Windows App SDK.

Install Visual Studio

Use these links to install Visual Studio 2022 (recommended) or Visual Studio 2019. You can choose between the free Visual Studio Community edition, Visual Studio Professional, or Visual Studio Enterprise. Also see System requirements for Windows app development.

Download Visual Studio 2022

Download Visual Studio 2019

Required workloads and components

While installing Visual Studio, select these workloads and components.

  • On the Workloads tab of the installation dialog, select as appropriate:

    • For Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app development, select Universal Windows Platform development
      • Then in the Installation details pane of the installation dialog for that workload, make sure either C++ (v143) Universal Windows Platform tools (for Visual Studio 2022) or C++ (v142) Universal Windows Platform tools (for Visual Studio 2019) is selected.
    • For C# app development, select .NET Desktop Development
    • For C++ app development, select Desktop development with C++

  • On the Individual components tab of the installation dialog, in the SDKs, libraries, and frameworks section, make sure Windows 10 SDK (10.0.19041.0) is selected.

Preview release

The Windows App SDK includes Visual Studio project and item templates for creating and developing WinUI 3 apps. For a preview of the next stable release, install the latest extension from the preview release channel. For more info, see Preview release channel.

The templates are available by installing a Visual Studio extension (VSIX).

Note

If you installed Windows App SDK C# Templates (an installation detail of the .NET Desktop Development workload) and/or Windows App SDK C++ Templates (an installation detail of the Desktop development with C++ workload), then run Visual Studio Installer to uninstall them before installing the VSIX.

C# Visual Studio 2022 extension

C++ Visual Studio 2022 extension

The extensions from the preview channel are available only from the download locations provided above. These extensions are not available via Visual Studio Marketplace or the Manage Extensions dialog box in Visual Studio.

Note

If you install the C# version of the Windows App SDK 1.0 Preview 2 extension for Visual Studio 2019, and you want to use the Single-project MSIX Packaging Tools project template (see Package your app using single-project MSIX), then you must also install the Single-project MSIX Packaging Tools extension separately. The Blank App, Packaged (WinUI 3 in Desktop) project template has a known issue that results in a build error unless you also install the single-project packaging tools extension. This issue doesn't affect other versions of the Windows App SDK 1.0 Preview 2 extension.

Experimental release

For experimental features, install the latest extension from the experimental release channel. For more info, see Experimental release channel.

Choose one of these options to install the latest experimental release (Version 1.0 Experimental (1.0.0-experimental1)):

  • In Visual Studio, click Extensions > Manage Extensions, search for Windows App SDK (Experimental), and install the latest extension.
  • Alternatively, you can download and install the extension directly from Visual Studio Marketplace:

Download latest experimental release

For more versions of the Windows App SDK, see Downloads for the Windows App SDK.

Next steps

To create your first WinUI 3 app that uses the Windows App SDK, see Create your first WinUI 3 project.

Also see Use the Windows App SDK in an existing project.