Will Metro-style applications be able to be installed outside the market frame?

Question

Can I develop my custom private Metro-style applications and deploy them directly to my customers, bypassing the market?

Will I be able to provide my customers with their custom-made applications in Metro-style?

For instance, in Android you can transfer an APK file.

Answer 1

On Technet there's an article on sideloading Metro style applications. Basically, the requirements are as follows:

• The application must be cryptograhically signed.
• The computer it will be installed to must trust the signing certificate.
• The Allow all trusted applications to install group policy setting must be enabled.
• To run the application the computer must be joined to a domain.

As long as your customers are in enterprise environment these requirements shouldn't be a problem. Outside enterprise environment you'll need to distibute your apps through the Windows store.

At least with the Consumer Preview of Windows 8 the sideloading also works on machines with a valid developer licence. I couldn't find any official info on that but this might stay the case with the final release as well for the purpose of testing the apps.

EDIT: Some additional info has just been published. Key points:

• Sideloading will be enabled in Windows 8 Enterprise Edition and Windows 8 Server editions. It is also currently enabled in both Windows 8 Consumer Preview and Windows Server 8 Beta.
• In other editions of Windows 8 a special product key will need to be activated to enable sideloading. It might not be necessary for the computer to be joined to a domain in this case.

Answer 2

Sort of … not really.

Windows 8 Enterprise edition will have the ability to side-load Metro-style apps. The idea is that you can deploy an internal app to your enterprise. The implication is that non-enterprise editions that will come with your consumer/retail PC or tablet will likely not support side-loading of Metro-style apps.

See No escape from the store for the plebs!.

Answer 3

I don't see why not. I've played with the Visual Studio 11 beta on Windows 8, and one of the templates is for a Metro app. It was just a .NET executable. So, as long as you can deploy that to your machines just like you do today, there should be no problem.