Windows App SDK 1.6 announced – Native AOT support reduces application startup time

The Windows App SDK 1.6 will soon be available for application developers. The announcement has already been made, but the download is not yet available. But the new Windows App SDK 1.6 is not only interesting for developers, but also for us.

Native AOT (Ahead-Of-Time) compilation has been added as a new feature. If a developer can add this feature to their app, the application’s startup time can be halved. Microsoft writes: “In our sample application Contoso Camera, we measured a 50% reduction in startup time and ~8x reduction in package size when using a framework package and a ~2x reduction in package size when using the Windows App SDK in standalone mode.”

This means that we, the users, also benefit when apps can start faster and become smaller. But there are also other changes and improvements. For example, the WinAppSDK has been decoupled from the Edge WebView2 API interface. This means that a developer can always access the latest WebView2 version.

The function of pulling out a tab, for example, has also been revised. We know this function from the File Explorer. “In the new mode, dragging a tab out of your app’s TabView is similar to dragging tabs in Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome, as the drag immediately creates a new window. This way, users get immediate visual feedback on their action and can drag the new window to the edge of the screen to maximize or shrink it in a single continuous motion.”

For further changes, you can read Microsoft’s blog post. A download will then be available here.

Windows 11 Tutorials and Help