Create your first Windows Store app using C# or Visual Basic

[ This article is for Windows 8.x and Windows Phone 8.x developers writing Windows Runtime apps. If you’re developing for Windows 10, see the latest documentation ]

[This tutorial series is featured in Develop great apps for Windows 8.]

Learn how to use C# or Visual Basic to create Windows Store apps.

In this section

Topic	Description
Part 1: Create a "Hello, world" app (Windows Store apps using C#/VB and XAML)	This tutorial teaches you how to create a simple "Hello, world" Windows Store app using Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) with Microsoft Visual Basic or C#. It's the first tutorial in a series that teach you what you need to know to build Windows Store apps.
Part 2: Manage app lifecycle and state (Windows Store apps using C#/VB and XAML)	In Windows 8, you can launch several apps and switch between them without having to worry about slowing down the system or running the battery down. That's because the system automatically suspends (and sometimes terminates) apps that are running in the background for you. A well-designed app can be suspended, terminated, and relaunched by the system and seem as though it were running the entire time. In Part 2 of this tutorial series, you update your "Hello, world" app to respond to lifecycle events and save user and session data.
Part 3: Navigation, layout, and views	The UI design for your Windows Store app is about organizing and presenting content to your users, and providing commands that enable your users to act on the content. UI design includes the organization of pages in the app, the navigation between pages, and the layout of content and commands on each page. In Part 3 of this tutorial series, you add a photo viewer page to your "Hello, world" app and learn how to use Microsoft Visual Studio to create a UI.
Part 4: File access and pickers	To access file system locations such as the user’s library folders, your app needs to declare capabilities to access the data programmatically, or use a file picker to let the user open the file manually. In Part 4 of this tutorial series, you learn how to access files and update the app to use a file picker.
Part 5: Create a blog reader (Windows Store apps using C#/VB and XAML)	We introduce the essential code and concepts you need to create a Windows Store app using C# or Visual Basic.