In an announcement met by hoots and hollers from the developers at Build, Microsoft introduced the “Centennial” desktop app converter. With this, developers can convert their Win32 and .NET apps into the AppX app format for use in the Windows store, turning legacy apps into current-gen applications.
This is pretty exciting, because it enables people who’ve written legacy apps to deploy them to the app store as Universal Windows Platform apps. The key feature of this is to ensure that the app experience is suitable, regardless of whether you’re on a mobile device, a computer, a surface-like device, or devices without screens or passive display devices, where applicable.
The converters should hugely increase the availability of apps in the Windows store. In the Build presentation, Microsoft revealed that they had been working with enterprise accounting software company Sage to bring its Sage 200 software to the Windows store.
The Centennial toolkit is not live yet, but is inching its way into being ready for use as part of the Microsoft Developer Preview program.