sideload windows 8 apps to multiple devices?

Question

I have developed a windows 8 app and I wish to install the app on 10 devices and also when I alter the app I wish to automatically upgrade the app installed on these 10 devices. I do not wish to use the windows store and the app and devices have the necessary certificates needed. Is there a way I can sideload the app to the 10 devices and upgrade the app easily without using a hardrive to uninstall and install the app on each device?

Answer 1

Altough this was asked a while ago i want to answer this, as i myself struggled a long time sideloading LOB-apps and Microsoft almost makes no efforts of clarifying the mess of their licensing programm.

---

1. You need to get a sideloading key, you can get it from the microsoft volume licensing center (it is not easy to find, best you ask a distributor partner) costs 100$ and is as far as i know for 25 devices. You need to be partner to obtain such a key.

UPDATE: for unlimited devices (see article posted from user3123726)

FYI: i doubt it but if you plan to have all devices in the same domain you do not need a sideload-key

---

2. On the device where the application should run

   • install the app certificate into 'trusted root certificates' and 'trusted publishers'

   • install and register the sideloading key

for installing:

/C slmgr /ipk 00000-00000-00000-00000-00000   //your side loading key  

for registering:

/C slmgr /ato ec67814b-30e6-4a50-bf7b-d55daf729d1e  //for everybody the same key

---

3. For publishing and updating the app Microsoft has a service called 'Intune' where you can register your devices and deploy store apps to. I have tried this solution and really couldn't make it work. It worked sometimes but had a lot of crashes and freezes with no usable error message. I highly recommend to write your own update function as i lost many many hours trying to get it to work. It also seems like nobody really is using this solution as it has only 12 reviews in the app store and no forums whatsoever talking about it. However if you wish to try see this link: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn646972.aspx You'll need to install the 'Company store app' on each device.

If you tend to write your own update/install mechanism you can use this Powershell command to install the app on the device. You could use dropbox to distribute the packages to the devices and write a service which runs the powershell.

Add-AppxPackage -Path "yourapp.appx" -DependencyPath "Dependencies\x86\appdependency.appx"