Quickstart: Call the Microsoft Graph API from a Universal Windows Platform (UWP) application

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Quickstart: Sign in users and call Microsoft Graph in a Universal Windows Platform app

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In this quickstart, you download and run a code sample that demonstrates how a Universal Windows Platform (UWP) application can sign in users and get an access token to call the Microsoft Graph API.

See How the sample works for an illustration.

Prerequisites

Step 1: Configure the application

For the code sample in this quickstart to work, add a Redirect URI of https://login.microsoftonline.com/common/oauth2/nativeclient.

Already configured Your application is configured with these attributes.

Step 2: Download the Visual Studio project

Run the project using Visual Studio 2019.

Tip

To avoid errors caused by path length limitations in Windows, we recommend extracting the archive or cloning the repository into a directory near the root of your drive.

Step 3: Your app is configured and ready to run

We have configured your project with values of your app's properties and it's ready to run.

Step 4: Run the application

To run the sample application on your local machine:

  1. In the Visual Studio toolbar, choose the right platform (probably x64 or x86, not ARM). The target device should change from Device to Local Machine.

  2. Select Debug > Start Without Debugging.

    If you're prompted to do so, you might first need to enable Developer Mode, and then Start Without Debugging again to launch the app.

When the app's window appears, you can select the Call Microsoft Graph API button, enter your credentials, and consent to the permissions requested by the application. If successful, the application displays some token information and data obtained from the call to the Microsoft Graph API.

How the sample works

Shows how the sample app generated by this quickstart works

MSAL.NET

MSAL (Microsoft.Identity.Client) is the library used to sign in users and request security tokens. The security tokens are used to access an API protected by the Microsoft Identity platform. You can install MSAL by running the following command in Visual Studio's Package Manager Console:

Install-Package Microsoft.Identity.Client

MSAL initialization

You can add the reference for MSAL by adding the following code:

using Microsoft.Identity.Client;

Then, MSAL is initialized using the following code:

public static IPublicClientApplication PublicClientApp;
PublicClientApp = PublicClientApplicationBuilder.Create(ClientId)
                                                .WithRedirectUri("https://login.microsoftonline.com/common/oauth2/> nativeclient")
                                                    .Build();

The value of ClientId is the Application (client) ID of the app you registered in the Azure portal. You can find this value in the app's Overview page in the Azure portal.

Requesting tokens

MSAL has two methods for acquiring tokens in a UWP app: AcquireTokenInteractive and AcquireTokenSilent.

Get a user token interactively

Some situations require forcing users to interact with the Microsoft identity platform through a pop-up window to either validate their credentials or to give consent. Some examples include:

  • The first-time users sign in to the application
  • When users may need to reenter their credentials because the password has expired
  • When your application is requesting access to a resource, that the user needs to consent to
  • When two factor authentication is required
authResult = await App.PublicClientApp.AcquireTokenInteractive(scopes)
                      .ExecuteAsync();

The scopes parameter contains the scopes being requested, such as { "user.read" } for Microsoft Graph or { "api://<Application ID>/access_as_user" } for custom web APIs.

Get a user token silently

Use the AcquireTokenSilent method to obtain tokens to access protected resources after the initial AcquireTokenInteractive method. You don’t want to require the user to validate their credentials every time they need to access a resource. Most of the time you want token acquisitions and renewal without any user interaction

var accounts = await App.PublicClientApp.GetAccountsAsync();
var firstAccount = accounts.FirstOrDefault();
authResult = await App.PublicClientApp.AcquireTokenSilent(scopes, firstAccount)
                                      .ExecuteAsync();
  • scopes contains the scopes being requested, such as { "user.read" } for Microsoft Graph or { "api://<Application ID>/access_as_user" } for custom web APIs.
  • firstAccount specifies the first user account in the cache (MSAL supports multiple users in a single app).

Help and support

If you need help, want to report an issue, or want to learn about your support options, see Help and support for developers.

Next steps

Try out the Windows desktop tutorial for a complete step-by-step guide on building applications and new features, including a full explanation of this quickstart.