I'm currently playing around with sideloading of Windows 8 applications in a corporate environment. Our customers will most probably run Windows 8 Pro on x86-based tablets. Deploying an application with the PowerShell works (rather) well, as long as there is a developer account registered on the target device. If it's not, the following error will occur when the app gets started:
This app can't open
There's a problem with ~AppName~. Contact your system administrator about repairing or reinstalling it.
The root certificate of our CA is installed on the device and the Allow all trusted apps to install group policy setting is properly set. The device is in an (experimental) domain. On Windows 8 Enterprise it actually works like a charm.
Regarding to this article on TechNet, for sideloading on any other Windows versions than Enterprise a "sideloading product activation key" is required. I searched for more information about such a key, but I didn't find anything.
So my question is: what is a "sideloading product activation key", who generates it and how do I activate/enter it? Or does this phrase mean we need to choose Windows 8 Enterprise?
According to this article on ZDNet, you need to buy the keys required to enable sideloading on Windows 8 Pro (as long as you don't want to stick with a developer license). If you search for the given SKU (J7S-00005), you'll find some shops selling bundles with 100 keys for 30€ each.