What's supported when migrating from UWP to WinUI 3
WinUI 3 and the Windows App SDK are new technologies and, when compared to UWP, there are some features that aren't supported. This topic provides information on which features are supported before you attempt migration.
UWP feature | WinUI 3 status |
---|---|
Background acrylic | ✅ Available via DesktopAcrylicController. |
Background tasks | ✅ Supported; see BackgroundTaskBuilder (introduced in 1.7). |
Common UI controls | ✅ Supported |
CameraCaptureUI | ✅ Supported; see CameraCaptureUI (introduced in 1.7). For alternative APIs, see Using video capture. |
Composition/DirectX interop | ✅ Most Composition and Drawing features are supported (global composition effects aren't supported in 1.7); see Enhance UI with the Visual layer. |
Distributing via Store | ✅ Supported |
Live Tiles (on Windows 10) | ✅ Supported |
MapControl | ✅ Supported; see MapControl (introduced in 1.5). |
MediaElement and MediaPlayerElement | ✅ Use MediaPlayerElement, which was introduced in 1.2. |
MSAL library | ✅ Supported |
MSIX | ✅ Supported |
Single-instancing | ✅ Supported |
TaskbarManager API | ✅ Supported; for details, see TaskbarManager desktop samples. |
Toast notifications | ✅ Supported |
Visual Studio App Center | ✅ Supported |
WebAuthenticationBroker | ✅ Supported; see Microsoft.Security.Authentication.OAuth (introduced in 1.7). |
Best launch speed and performance | ⚠️ Slight disadvantage, see performance considerations. |
CoreTextServicesManager | ⚠️ Supported only on Windows 11 |
PrintManager | ⚠️ Supported on Windows 11 (not yet available on Windows 10) |
CoreWindow and related APIs | ❌ Not supported in 1.7. For alternative APIs with some of the same functionality, see AppWindow, and HWND-based APIs. |
Virtual key support for gamepad input | ❌ Not supported in 1.7; see Gamepad support in WinUI 3 |
InkCanvas | ❌ Not supported in 1.7 |
Single-app kiosk | ❌ Not supported in 1.7 |
Xbox and HoloLens | ❌ Not supported in 1.7 |
Performance considerations
Today in version 1.7 of the Windows App SDK, launch speeds, RAM usage, and installation size of WinUI 3 apps are larger/slower than seen in UWP. We're actively working to improve this.
Visual Studio
The Design tab of the XAML Designer in Visual Studio (and Blend for Visual Studio) doesn't currently support WinUI 3 projects (as of version 1.7 of the Windows App SDK). For more info, see Create a UI by using XAML Designer.
See Also
Windows developer