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What's supported when migrating from UWP to WinUI 3

WinUI and the Windows App SDK are new technologies and, when compared to UWP, there are some features that aren't supported. This topic provides information on which features are supported before you attempt migration.

UWP feature WinUI status
Background acrylic ✅ Available via DesktopAcrylicController.
Background tasks ✅ Supported; see BackgroundTaskBuilder (introduced in 1.7).
ContentDialog ✅ Available. Preferred over MessageDialog in WinUI 3 (no HWND interop required; set XamlRoot instead).
RichEditBox ✅ Available.
WebView (UWP) ✅ Use WebView2, which is the WinUI 3 replacement. Requires the WebView2 Runtime (pre-installed on most Windows 10/11 devices via Microsoft Edge).
DataGrid ❌ No first-party WinUI 3 control. The CommunityToolkit DataGrid is UWP-only (version 7.1.0) and has not been ported to WinUI 3. Community alternative: WinUI.TableView. For simpler tabular data, consider ListView with a GridView layout.
CameraCaptureUI ✅ Supported; see CameraCaptureUI (introduced in 1.7). For alternative APIs, see Using video capture.
Composition/DirectX interop ✅ Most Composition and Drawing features are supported; see Enhance UI with the Visual layer.
Distributing via Store ✅ Supported
Live Tiles (on Windows 10) ✅ Supported
MapControl ✅ Supported; see MapControl (introduced in 1.5).
MediaElement and MediaPlayerElement ✅ Use MediaPlayerElement, which was introduced in 1.2.
MSAL library ✅ Supported
MSIX ✅ Supported
Single-instancing ✅ Supported
TaskbarManager API ✅ Supported; for details, see TaskbarManager desktop samples.
Toast notifications ✅ Supported
Visual Studio App Center ❌ Retired on March 31, 2025. Analytics and Diagnostics features continue until March 31, 2027; migrate to Azure Monitor.
WebAuthenticationBroker ✅ Supported; see Microsoft.Security.Authentication.OAuth (introduced in 1.7).
Best launch speed and performance ⚠️ Slight disadvantage, see performance considerations.
CoreTextServicesManager ⚠️ Supported only on Windows 11
PrintManager ⚠️ Supported on Windows 11 (not yet available on Windows 10)
CoreWindow and related APIs ❌ Not supported in 2.0. For alternative APIs with some of the same functionality, see AppWindow, and HWND-based APIs.
Virtual key support for gamepad input ❌ Not supported in 2.0; see Gamepad support in WinUI
InkCanvas ⚠️ Experimental only (introduced in 2.0 Experimental 1). Not available in the stable 2.0 channel. InkToolbar is not available. See Known control gaps.
Single-app kiosk ❌ Not supported in 2.0
Xbox and HoloLens ❌ Not supported in 2.0

Performance considerations

Today in version 2.0 of the Windows App SDK, launch speeds, RAM usage, and installation size of WinUI apps are larger/slower than seen in UWP. We're actively working to improve this.

Known control gaps

The following UWP controls do not have stable WinUI 3 equivalents as of Windows App SDK 2.0. This section lists the gap and available alternatives.

UWP control or API Status Alternatives
InkCanvas Experimental only (2.0 Experimental 1); not in stable Win2D with pointer input handling; third-party inking libraries
InkToolbar Not available Custom toolbar paired with Win2D inking
DataGrid No first-party control The CommunityToolkit DataGrid is UWP-only (v7.1.0); WinUI.TableView is a WinUI 3 community alternative
DisplayRequest Not available Win32 SetThreadExecutionState API

Note

Controls marked "Experimental" are available in the Windows App SDK experimental channel but have not graduated to stable. Experimental APIs may change or be removed in future releases. Do not use experimental APIs in production applications.

Visual Studio

The Design tab of the XAML Designer in Visual Studio (and Blend for Visual Studio) doesn't currently support WinUI 3 projects (as of version 2.0 of the Windows App SDK). For more info, see Create a UI by using XAML Designer. For the recommended runtime design workflow, see XAML runtime design tools for WinUI 3.

See Also

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