Launching Windows apps and managing background tasks

Learn how to use a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) or a file type to launch a Windows app or manage background tasks in your apps.

Launch a Windows app with a URI

This section describes how to use a URI to launch your Windows app.

Topic	Description
Launch the default app for a URI	Learn how to launch the default app for a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). URIs allow you to launch another app to perform a specific task. This topic also provides an overview of the many URI schemes built into Windows.
Handle URI activation	Learn how to register an app to become the default handler for a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) scheme name.
Launch an app for results	Learn how to launch an app from another app and exchange data between the two. This is called launching an app for results.
Launch the Windows Settings app	Learn how to launch the Windows Settings app from your app. This topic describes the ms-settings URI scheme. Use this URI scheme to launch the Windows Settings app to specific settings pages.
Launch the Microsoft Store app	This topic describes the ms-windows-store URI scheme. Your app can use this URI scheme to launch the Microsoft Store app to specific pages in the Store.
Launch the Windows Maps app	Learn how to launch the Windows Maps app from your app.
Launch the People app	This topic describes the ms-people URI scheme. Your app can use this URI scheme to launch the People app for specific actions.
Launch screen snipping	Learn how to use URI schemes to open a new snip, or to open the Snip & Sketch app.
Enable apps for websites using app URI handlers	Drive user engagement with your app by supporting the Apps for Websites feature.

This section shows how to set up your app to launch when a file of a certain type is opened.

Topic	Description
Launch the default app for a file	Learn how to launch the default app for a file.
Handle file activation	Learn how to register your app to become the default handler for a certain file type.

This section describes how to manage background tasks in your app.

Topic	Description
Working with background tasks in Windows apps	Learn how to create and register a background task in your app with the Windows Runtime (WinRT) BackgroundTaskBuilder class.