How to deploy Windows-8 Enterprise Apps to other users

deploymentwindows 8

Windows-8 (Metro) Apps can be installed using "sideloading", bypassing the Windows store in enterprise environments.

In principle this is easy: Once you enabled sideloading (which is automatically done when a Win8-machine joins a domain), you can install a signed appx-Package through PowerShell with the "Add-AppxPackage" command. But there is a catch: The App is only installed for the user who executes the command and there is no "-Credentials" parameter!

I can probably solve that problem in my specific scenario, where I deploy a self-developed app through TFS build to a virtual machine with a fixed demo user (by using remote powershell in combination with "Add-Job", which does take a credential parameter and because I know the given username and the password).

But that is not true in an enterprise environment, where I want to distribute my App to thousands of users. Cracking all their passwords seems a bit over the top, so what would be the "correct" way to do this? I can't find any useful information from Microsoft about this, but maybe one of you already ran into this problem and solved it?

Best Answer

It is still early days but the options you have so far are:

  1. Deploy with System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2012 SP1 (currently in beta due early 2013). See:
  2. Deploy with Windows Intune cloud service (version 4, due early 2013) as an alternative to using SCCM. See:
  3. Use PowerShell cmdlets. These could be used in a login script to deploy applications to a user. See:
  4. Wrap the .appx in a MSI for side loading and deploy via GPO. I have only seen the InstallShield one, but presumably all the MSI packing vendors will provide options in the future. See:
  5. Use Windows Image servicing to deploy the apps into an image. See:

Also as general reference see these:

Hope that helps.

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