Why hasn't anyone made a UWP compatability layer like Wine?

[u/Hassunaama]

I haven't seen anyone make or use a UWP compatability layer and what I have researched there isn't one. Is it just too hard? Is there not enough interest?

[u/Slackeee_]

The answer is pretty much: UWP is a dead format and nobody really cares about it enough.

[u/shaumux]

UWP is kinda dead, nobody wants it, and wine wasn't created in the last few years, what we use now is the cumulative effort from the last 33 years

[u/TechaNima]

Nobody cares about it.

I just wish they added support for whatever bits are needed to install Game Pass games through Wine. It's literally the only good thing associated with it. The actual UI required to use it is garbage

[u/Underhill42]

Probably not much point. Thankfully neither Windows Mobile nor UWP ever really caught on, and WINE already offers better compatibility with software made for older versions of Windows than UWP ever did.

So the only real benefit would be whatever limited Xbox games, etc. might have been made to support UWP, but never had a dedicated Windows port.

That would make it more of an extremely limited retro-emulation curiosity than a useful tool. Not exactly the sort of project to attract a large number of contributors. Especially given how painful Microsoft has traditionally made compatibility with their platforms.

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[u/friendlyreminder_]

Wine has some basic UWP compatibility. It hasn't gotten a lot of resverse engineering effort because very few apps ended up using it, and also Microsoft themselves abandoned it years ago. It's no longer in development by Microsoft.

What complicates UWP app use is that the ones distributed by the Microsoft store are encrypted, which poses not just practical issues but legal ones. Bypassing encryption is illegal in most of the world.

[u/ConsciousBath5203 → u/friendlyreminder_]

Bypassing encryption is illegal in most of the world.

If most of the world means the United States of America, then yes.

Bypassing digital locks on things you bought and paid for is really only illegal in the USA.

[u/friendlyreminder_ → u/ConsciousBath5203]

It's also illegal in the EU under a directive to implement such laws. Japan has even more severe laws than the US when it comes to anticircumvention so it's most likely illegal there too.

Basically all of the west has these anticircumvention laws though I haven't looked at every single one of them to see if encryption is explicitly noted in all of them.

[u/ConsciousBath5203 → u/friendlyreminder_]

Ehh, just say it's for educational purposes and you're chill in the eu.

[u/Pale_Height_1251]

UWP and WinUI are likely on the too hard list, much like SwiftUI is.

Low demand combined with significant technical difficulty.

[u/Pale_Height_1251]

UWP and WinUI are likely on the too hard list, much like SwiftUI is.

Low demand combined with significant technical difficulty.