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June 29, 2018
PC

Publishing times for Microsoft Store just got faster!

Updating your Microsoft Store listing is the best way to let customers know more about your app or game. You might want to update the description to call out key features, or add new screenshots and video trailers to help your customers see what your product does best. At times, you may also want to update your app’s or game’s price, either on an indefinite basis or as a limited-time sale to entice new customers to make a purchase.

We’ve heard your feedback that you’d like to be able to see these types of changes in the Microsoft Store sooner. We’ve been working hard to improve our publishing times, and we’re pleased to announce that starting today, submissions that make these types of changes without updating packages will be published faster than ever before. After these submissions go through the certification process (which is often completed in a few hours but may take up to three business days), these updates will be reflected in Microsoft Store in less than one hour!

It’s important to note that updated app packages that you submit to Microsoft Store aren’t affected by these improved processing times, so it could still take up to three business days before submissions with updated packages are published in Microsoft Store. (If no packages are updated, the changes should be published within the hour after the certification process is complete.) If you ever experience a delay of longer than three business days for a submission to be published, we encourage you to contact support so that we can investigate.

Note that when publishing a product for the first time, we recommend submitting at least three days before you want your app or game to appear in the Store. For more precise release scheduling, you can use the Schedule section of the Pricing and availability page when you create your submission to specify a precise release date and time (in UTC or in each local market’s time zone, with the ability to use different dates for different markets if desired).

We hope you’ll find the publishing time improvement makes it easier for you to adjust your pricing quickly or get updated listing details in front of your customer base more quickly.