Planning to Deploy Windows 8 Apps in Configuration Manager

Review the available information about the basic concepts for application management in Configuration Manager.

For introductory information about application management, see Introduction to Application Management in Configuration Manager.

Review and implement the prerequisites to deploy applications in Configuration Manager.

For information about the prerequisites for application management, see Prerequisites for Application Management in Configuration Manager.

Configure and test the Application Catalog and Software Center to enable users to browse for and install software.

For information about how to configure the Application Catalog and Software Center, see Configuring the Application Catalog and Software Center in Configuration Manager.

Review the two different available methods that you can use to deploy software to computers that run Windows 8:

• Deploy the application by providing a link to the app in the Windows Store.
  
  
• Deploy the app installation file (.appx file) to computers directly, bypassing the Windows Store. This process is sometimes called sideloading.
  
  

No additional information.

Review the requirements and recommendations to deploy Windows 8 apps to computers in the company. If you are deploying a line of business application, work with the application developers to ensure that the following requirements are met:

• The technical compliance of the App has been validated to ensure that it provides a consistent Windows 8 application experience, that it meets the minimum technical requirements for an app, and that it will function correctly on future versions of Windows.
  
  
• The app is signed by a certification authority (CA) that is trusted by the Windows 8 computers that will install the app. The publisher name in the package manifest file must match the publisher name in the certificate that signs the app.
  
  

  Note

  Microsoft recommends that all apps that are installed by deploying application installation files are signed by a certificate that is from a trusted certification authority. By default, Windows trusts many certification authorities without any additional configuration. If the signing certificate is from one of these trusted authorities, you do not need to deploy and manage additional certificates on Windows 8 computers that will install the Windows 8 app. You can also use your internal PKI to sign the app if computers trust the certification authority that issues the signing certificate. Visual Studio provides a self-signing test certificate that you can use to test apps internally. Microsoft recommends that you use these self-signed certificates for internal testing only and that you do not use them on production networks for enterprise deployment.

  Important
  When you import a Windows 8 app into Configuration Manager, no validation is done to ensure that the app is signed. Be sure to take the steps outlined in this topic to sign the application before you import it into Configuration Manager.

For information about how to validate the technical compliance of Windows 8 apps, see Testing your app with the Windows App Certification Kit in the Windows Dev Center.

For information about how to sign apps by using Microsoft Visual Studio, see Signing an app package (Windows Store apps) in the Windows Dev Center.

Configure Windows 8 computers to allow direct installation of Windows 8 apps. To do so, use group policy to configure the following sideloading registry settings:

Note
Client computers that run different versions of Windows 8 have different requirements for enabling the sideloading of apps. For example, you must configure the sideloading key on a computer that runs Windows 8 Enterprise if the computer is not joined to a domain. For more information about these requirements, see the section Windows 8 Sideloading Requirements in this topic.

• On computers that run enterprise versions of Windows 8 Enterprise, use this registry setting: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Appx\AllowAllTrustedApps = 1
  
  
• On computers that run Windows 8 Professional, use this registry setting: HKEYLOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Appx\AllowAllTrustedApps = 1
  
  

For more information about how to configure group policy preferences in order to configure registry settings, see your Windows documentation.

When you create an application of the type Windows app package (in the Windows Store), you must browse to a reference computer and select the application in order to create a link. Before you can do this, you must prepare the reference computer to receive Web Service Management (WS-Management) requests from the Configuration Manager console.

See Prepare the Reference Computer for Application Browsing in this topic.