How to Deploy a Windows Store App to Another Device

In the old days of Windows you could just take the executable of your app and copy it onto another machine and run it. With Windows Store apps the process is more complicated, but Microsoft has made it as simple as they can. You can build an app package and then copy and install this onto another Windows 8 or Windows RT device. Open your project in Visual Studio and right-click the project file in the Solution Explorer. This brings up the context menu where you will select Store | Create App Packages… Next you get the option to build a package to upload to the Windows Store. Since we just want to run our app on another personal device, we don’t need to do this. Select No and continue on. Next you get the option to change the version number and solution configuration. Usually you can just keep this information as it is, no need to change it unless you know what you’re doing. Click Create and Visual Studio will create some package files in the project directory named AppPackages. Copy these files to the device you wish to install the app. On your second device, open the directory of files and right-click the file named Add-AppDevPackage.ps1. Choose Run with PowerShell from the menu. Walk through the prompts entering information where necessary. Note that you may need to renew your Windows Store developer license to install an app outside the Windows Store. The prompts will have you do this, so it’s still a very straight-forward process to install an app onto another device.