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Pairing a driver with a Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app

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Starting in Windows 10 version 1709, you can specify that a Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app should only load if a specific driver is present. When you use this option, the Microsoft Store offers each user the most recent version of the app that works with the installed version of the driver on that user's computer.

The app can further constrain loading to a particular driver version or date. This topic describes the steps required in both the app and driver to create such a requirement.

Note

Both the application and the driver must declare the dependency on the application (HSA).

Steps in the app

To cause a UWP app to load only when a specific driver is present, add two XML elements to the manifest XML (.appx) file for the app:

In particular, use these elements to specify at least one driver dependency containing at least one driver constraint. See further details on use of these elements on the reference pages linked to above, including Examples.

Note

Debug builds in earlier versions of Visual Studio may place the <PackageDependency> elements for debug dependencies after <uap5:DriverDependency>, resulting in the manifest failing to validate against the schema. To fix the problem, update Visual Studio to version 16.11.5 or more recent.

Steps in the driver

Next, do the following in the driver's INF file:

  1. Specify the INF AddSoftware Directive.
  2. Set the SoftwareType entry to 2.
  3. Provide a Package Family Name (PFN) in the SoftwareID entry.

In addition to matching the most recent app and driver versions, the system also tries to match previous app and driver versions. For example, if app version 2 specifies minimum driver version 2, and app version 1 specifies minimum driver version 1, a system that has driver version 1 will successfully load app version 1.

See Also