make .exe file out of Visual Studio uwp .appx file

Question

I have an uwp-app, designed with Visual Studio 2015 for windows 10 (multi-touch, etc.), but it must NOT be released via Windows Store (and yes, that includes also the kind'a "private / hidden" version via Windows store) and an installation via Powershell is a little complicated for an average customer, so I would prefer some good old .exe file.

Is there any possibility to export / release the programm instead of .appx as .exe?

Thx for any support :)

Answer 1

Short answer is you can't.

As explained on this article:

To sell your Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app or distribute it to other users, you need to create an appxupload package for it. When you create the appxupload, another appx package will be generated to use for testing and sideloading. You can distribute your app directly by sideloading the appx package to a device.

So you only have three options:

1. Create the package and upload it to the store.
2. Create the package and perform the sideloading process.
3. Create a new WPF application reusing the view models and logic/backend layer of the UWP one.

You might be able to create a powershell script to try and automate the process (I have never tried this), or your own application in WPF to automate it, but aside from that, no other official options are available as of today.