WinUI 3 – UWP’s Successor

As you already know, WinUI is Microsoft’s follow-up to UWP. As the successor to the UWP platform, Microsoft has invested heavily in the WinUI platform. According to Microsoft’s Windows UI Library roadmap, Microsoft will not introduce major changes to UWP – and to state the obvious – Microsoft will shift focus away from UWP in favor of WinUI 3. Here is a specific quote regarding .NET 5/6 support from Microsoft (GitHub discussion):

If you need to use .NET 5/6 in your UWP project type, we recommend you migrate your project to a WinUI 3 desktop project, since .NET 5/6 will not be coming to UWP project types.

Accordingly, we have decided to fully invest our energies on WinUI 3 and abandon any additional work (albeit minor work) on UWP.

What this means for active DevExpress UWP users.

• We will replace UWP with WinUI components in our v22.1 release. UWP controls and demos will be removed from all distributions/installations.
• We will continue to provide support and minor updates to our UWP controls until December 2022. Of course, we will make exceptions if critical/security issues arise.
• We will announce licensing/pricing plans as we near our v22.1 release date (expected May 2022). We will also offer our UWP customers an upgrade path to our new WinUI Subscription.
• DevExpress WinUI components are available free of charge until our official v22.1 release. If you are considering WinUI for a future project, be sure to download your free copy today. This free WinUI offer will expire on May 1, 2022.

Should you have questions about our decision to terminate UWP related development or to discuss the impact of this decision on a current project, please submit a ticket via the DevExpress Support Center. We will be happy to follow up.

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