Notes about confidentiality and purchasing (Dev Center Tip #6)

At the beginning of the Windows Dev Center Tips series, you were introduced to the flowchart below to help you identify the best way to publish your app. The posts that followed went deeper into each particular option. Now that we’re at the end of this series, we’ll examine some of the relationships between these options and provide additional guidance around them.

Public pages

Options 1 to 4 will all have public pages with your app’s information. Even if you choose to publish your app as hidden, as per options 3 and 4, there is still a chance that a customer can find the Store listing for the app and see its icon, screenshots, and description.

Confidentiality

If confidentiality is highly important to you, you have two options. First, you can use an obscured description and obscured screenshots on your app’s public page. This way, even if someone finds your public page, they won’t be able to find any telling information on it. Second, consider using sideloading or the Windows Store for Business (options 5 and 6) to distribute your app. Neither of these distribution method involves a public app page.

Selling your app

If you want to make your app available for purchase, either publish a public app or publish the app as hidden with a deep link (options 1 and 3). None of the other options in the flowchart will allow you to sell the app at this time.

Series wrap up

Many changes have been made to the Windows Dev Center over the past year in order to improve the ability to manage your apps effectively. Even more features are in the works, such as varying how quickly package updates are rolled out and letting customers opt-in to receive beta versions of an app. You can help make us Dev Center better by offering your opinions and suggestions at the Windows Platform Developer Feedback site. To learn even more about current and future plans for the Dev Center, follow these links:

• App flighting and beta testing in the Windows Store
• New Dev Center capabilities to increase revenue and streamline management
• Windows Store and Dev Center overview: new capabilities to help developers succeed

Other posts in the Dev Center Tips series:

• Publishing to Windows Store: Introducing the Windows Dev Center Tips series
• Publish or update a public app (Dev Center Tip #1)
• Package flighting (Dev Center Tip #2)
• Third-party and legacy distribution options (Dev Center Tip #3)
• Sideloading and enterprise distribution (Dev Center Tip #4)
• Publishing hidden apps (Dev Center Tip #5)