Unsupported APIs for background agents for Windows Phone 8

[ This article is for Windows Phone 8 developers. If you’re developing for Windows 10, see the latest documentation. ]

There is a set of APIs that cannot be used in code executed by a Scheduled Task. This includes code contained in classes that implement ScheduledTaskAgent as code in any libraries that are called from a ScheduledTaskAgent. Some of these APIs are detected by the development tools and will raise an error at run or compile time. Other APIs are restricted by the Store application submission process.

This topic contains the following sections.

• Unsupported APIs
• Noteworthy APIs for Use with Scheduled Tasks

Unsupported APIs

The following table lists the APIs in each namespace that are not supported for Scheduled Tasks. For some namespaces, all of the APIs within the namespace are unsupported.

Namespace	Unsupported API
Microsoft.Devices	Camera
Microsoft.Devices	VibrateController
Microsoft.Devices	NowPlaying
Microsoft.Devices.Radio	All APIs in this namespace are unsupported.
Microsoft.Devices.Sensors	All APIs in this namespace are unsupported.
Microsoft.Phone.BackgroundAudio	BackgroundAudioPlayer
Microsoft.Phone.BackgroundTransfer	Add(BackgroundTransferRequest)
Microsoft.Phone.Controls	WebBrowser
Microsoft.Phone.Info	IsKeyboardDeployed
Microsoft.Phone.Notification	All APIs in this namespace are unsupported.
Microsoft.Phone.Scheduler	Add(ScheduledAction) Remove(String) Replace(ScheduledAction)
Microsoft.Phone.Shell	All APIs are unsupported except the following: ShellToast class Update(ShellTileData) method of the ShellTile class. Updating FlipTileData, IconicTileData, and CycleTileData objects are all supported. Delete()()() method of the ShellTile class. ActiveTiles property of the ShellTile class.
Microsoft.Phone.Tasks	All APIs in this namespace are unsupported.
Microsoft.Xna.*	On Windows Phone 8, all APIs in all XNA Framework namespaces are unsupported except the following: Picture PictureAlbum PictureAlbumCollection PictureCollection On Windows Phone versions before Windows Phone 8, all XNA Framework namespaces are unsupported.
System.Windows	MessageBox
System.Windows	Clipboard
System.Windows.Controls	MediaElement
System.Windows.Controls	MultiScaleImage
System.Windows.Media	LicenseAcquirer
System.Windows.Media	A/V Capture
System.Windows.Navigation	All APIs in this namespace are unsupported.

Noteworthy APIs for Use with Scheduled Tasks

GeoCoordinateWatcher	This API, used for obtaining the geographic coordinates of the device, is supported for use in background agents, but it uses a cached location value instead of real-time data. The cached location value is updated by the device every 15 minutes.
Mutex class	The Mutex class should be used to synchronize access to resources that are shared between the foreground application and the background agent, such as files in isolated storage.
ShellToast class	This class can be used to pop up a toast notification from a running background agent.
Update(ShellTileData) method of the ShellTile class Delete()()() method of the ShellTile class ActiveTiles property of the ShellTile class	These methods can be used to modify shell Tiles from a running background agent. Note that shell Tiles cannot be created in a background agent.
HttpWebRequest class	This class allows you to make web requests from a running background agent.