About Microsoft CDN server on Windows Phone 8 - windows-phone-8

I will attempt to be clear. Well, in the old web store of Windows Phone 8 before I could download manually any app or game, via the link: "Download and install manually" as you can see
in this image It is a feature that was lost with the arrival of the new store of Windows 10.
Ok. Now, in the following video Download and Install Apps (XAP/APPX Files) on WP8.1 via PC you can see at time t=53 sec, appears at bottom of page the link http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/vimeo/the App ID/xap?apptype=regular
After the user clicks on 'Download and install manually' a popup box appears. Now you can see inside the pop-up box that the downloading of the app is downloaded from: http://cdn.marketplacecontent.windowsphone.com
But in fact the complete address follows this format:
http://cdn.marketplacecontent.windowsphone.com/public/the App ID?downloadname=name of the app.type of file(xap, appx or appxbundle)
For example, this is the direction of the game Tentacles: Enter the Mind from the Microsoft CDN server:
http://cdn.marketplacecontent.windowsphone.com/public/8915ee7c-c55d-4e8f-a0b6-f80497e6f26e?downloadname=tentacles-enter-the-mind.xap
As you just seen, the old web store of Windows Phone 8 could download apps and games from the Microsoft CDN server. Even with the new store Windows 10 you can still download apps from Microsoft CDN. There are website that somehow can download apps and games from the Microsoft CDN server such as: www.appx4fun.com www.windowscommunity.in and www.winphonehub.org to mention some.
Based upon everything I said, you have any idea of how to I can access the Microsoft CDN server to download apps without resorting to third-party stores? I would like to know how they do it.
NOTE: All apps can be downloaded manually using this address:http://cdn.marketplacecontent.windowsphone.com/public/the App ID?downloadname=name of the app.type of file(xap, appx or appxbundle)but for it to work you need to know the ID of the app you want to download and the type of file. How can I find the ID of the app? Know the ID is a very important information!
Well, that's all. I hope your answer
Regards.

Related

Trusted web activity - Digital assets link validation for intranet/private web app seem to be failing

I've followed this doc to
Create a wrapper Android app based on this sample project for my UI application which runs in non-public domain in our corporate servers.
Add assetlinks.json in my Angular 6 PWA application, with SHA256 fingerprints of my release key.
Deployed the signed apk to a Android 4.4.3 device running Chrome Dev 69 and Google play services - 12.8.74.
When I run the application, everything works fine except hiding the address bar, which makes it as a regular custom tab and not the "Trusted web" content.
I don't see any error in the log and not sure how to debug this scenario. Any help on this is appreciated.
Got confirmation from Chrome team that they are using TWA assets link validation in server side using an API call and so this solution wont work for Private web apps. Said that, they are also considering to move that logic to browser to support this use case. Will update here when I have any update on this.
Update: As of Chrome Version 72, TWA(Trusted web activity) if available in Chrome stable version and the web asset validation(to make sure the web page is yours/same as the app its loaded to) happens in browser. So this solution can be implemented for private web apps for hosting inside enterprise environment.
Also, now PWAs can be packed as regular app using TWA solution and uploaded to Play store as an apk file. Documentation on this is still being updated as per one of Chrome developer. But the solution as such is ready for use.

What happens when you update an Windows store app?

What happens when a developer updates an app? Does the user that updates the said app download a whole new app or is the windows app store smart enough like play store to just download the changes?Can anyone give logical explanation how it works in windows store?
>>Does the user that updates the said app download a whole new app or is the windows app store smart enough like play store to just download the changes?
When the developers created package for their project, and chose generate app bundle always, the user can download faster with an app bundle, because they only download the assets that they need. Then they don’t need to download a whole new app to update. If the developers didn’t choose this, the user may need to download a whole new app.
>>Can anyone give logical explanation how it works in windows store?
For example, if you create a app, then you choose generate app bundle always when packaging your app and publish this in the Windows Store. The customer need to download 100MB to require this app. After a period of time, you update this app, the customer just download the assets that they need to update our app, maybe just download 10MB.

Inside a Windows Store 8.1 app can i share a link to a web address which allows a user to download a .exe file?

My requirement is to associate a .exe file with a Windows Store 8.1 app. Is it acceptable to give a link through about section of the store app to a web address from where the user can download the .exe file. Will there be any problem with the certification process. Please suggest any suitable alternative if possible.
There is nothing in the Windows Store Policies that says otherwise. You can't attempt to run the *.exe file programmatically of course, but you should be fine otherwise.
Since the app is network-capable, remember to add a Privacy Policy (see here) detailing whether any user information is sent to an external website/server.

Auto-launching DailyMotion Windows Phone from another App

I have read about Auto-launching apps from another app on Windows Phone. I have a app that shows some videos, these videos are mainly from DailyMotion. Now my Question is if there is any possibility to check, if DailyMotion App is installed on my Phone, than open this video in this DailyMotion app instead of browser.
You can use custom URL to launch the dailymotion app. For example, using the line of code
string dailyUrl = "dailymotion://myurl";
Windows.System.Launcher.LaunchUriAsync(new Uri(dailyUrl));
It will automatically open the dailymotion app if it is installed on the phone, but otherwise it will probably perform nothing. So with the previous answer explaining how you might check if the app is installed, and this piece of code, you might be able to perform what you need :)
You cannot get the list of applications that are installed on the Windows Phone that are published by someone other than the publisher of the calling application.
There is a way, however, to get the list of applications that are installed on the device and are originating from the publisher of the caller ape.
Have a look over here
IEnumerable<Package> apps = Windows.Phone.Management.Deployment.InstallationManager.FindPackagesForCurrentPublisher();
apps.First().Launch(string.Empty);

Installing company app and application enrollment token through company portal. IE 10 in wp8 freezes in tap to open

We are distributing the company app and application enrollment token through our company portal. We observe the following behavior. When the user downloads the AETX through the IE 10 that comes with Windows phone 8 there is a prompt that comes as "tap to install", then a prompt to install the certificate automatically appears. After installing the certificate the IE browser tab just stays there. It does not move to my original web site.
We tried to perform the action on the page using various standard technique like loading the content in a Iframe and opening a windows etc. But apparently we see that whether we try to open it in IFRAME or new windows, the download link for ATEX and XAP opens in the same. It does not eve create a new tab/page.
Every time the user has to click the back button after install to reach the main site. This is very annoying for users.
Any help/suggestion would be of immense help
I would suggest you 3 checklists:-
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Try serving the XAP file without any Content-Type header (which by default is set to octet stream usually on the server end).
Try pushing your Enterprise app during the enrollment phase itself to avoid these complications. Its the best way to install the company app as a last step in the WAP Provisioning.
Thanks for the suggestion. I believe that is a default behavior of IE on WP8. I used this plug in to schedule the download one after another
http://johnculviner.com/jquery-file-download-plugin-for-ajax-like-feature-rich-file-downloads/