App lifecycle and system services

This article provides an index of development features that are related to scenarios involving managing the lifecycle of Windows apps and using system-level services provided by the Windows OS.

Windows App SDK features

The Windows App SDK provides the following features related to app lifecycle and system services for Windows 10 and later OS releases.

Important

If you're working on a UWP app, then refer to Migrate from UWP to the Windows App SDK.

Feature	Description
App lifecycle	Get an overview of managing the lifecycle of your app.
App instancing	Control whether multiple instances of your app's process can run at the same time.
Rich activation	Receive information about different kinds activations for your app.
Power management	Get visibility into how your app affects the device's power state, and enable your app to make intelligent decisions about resource usage.
Restart	Programmatically restart your application and set restart options after app termination.

Windows OS features

Windows 10 and later OS releases provide a wide variety of APIs related to app lifecycle and system services for apps. These features are available via a combination of WinRT and Win32 (C++ and COM) APIs provided by the Windows SDK.

WinRT APIs

The following articles provide information about features available via WinRT APIs provided by the Windows SDK.

Article	Description
Use app services and extensions	Learn how to integrate app services into your Windows app to allow the sharing of data and functionality across apps.
Support your app with background tasks	Learn how make lightweight code run in the background in response to triggers.
Launch an app through file activation	Learn how to set up your app to launch when a file of a certain type is opened.
Launch an app with a URI	Learn how to use a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) to launch one app from another app, enabling helpful app-to-app scenarios.
Threading and async programming	Learn how to use the thread pool to accomplish work asynchronously in parallel threads.

Win32 (C++ and COM) APIs

The following articles provide information about features available via Win32 (C++ and COM) APIs provided by the Windows SDK.

Article	Description
System services	Learn about system services available to apps, including COM, Windows messaging, service applications, and much more.
Memory management	Learn how to use virtual memory, memory mapped files, copy-on-write memory, large memory support, and other memory related features in your app.
Processes and threads	Learn how to control processes, threads, jobs, and other units of code execution in your app.
Windows system information	Learn how to access system information including the registry, handles and objects, and more.

.NET features

The .NET SDK also provides APIs related to system services for WPF and Windows Forms apps.

Article	Description
Threading model (WPF)	Learn about the threading model of WPF apps.
System information	Learn how to access system information in Windows Forms apps.