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windows-phone-8windows-phone-store

Windows Phone 8 app submission

The Windows Phone 8 app submission dashboard/portal has to be one of the most confusing sites I have dealt with compared to Android/iOS (and the least documented). I have two questions I was hoping someone can help me with:

When uploading a new version of the app with a new version number (containing just functionality changes/bug fixes, no changes to the package itself), I click the app I would like to update in the Windows Phone Store Developer Center and then click "Update app" which is fine and that creates the update package in the Dev Center.

update_app

I then go to "Complete" under Current submission:

complete_submission

And then finally, "Upload and describe your package(s)":

upload_packages

This is where I get thrown off a little, if I want to upload a new version of the app (no changes in the package, just functionality changes as described) then do I click "Replace" or "Add New"?

I have my suspicions I need to click "Replace" since I will essentially be replacing an old version with a new.

But I do that, upload my new package but the Windows Phone 8 Dev Center does not seem to pick up any new details about my XAP - and I cannot work out the reason why. One way I have verified this, is the Package version number remains the same as the old one:

app_version

Is what I am doing the correct process? Is the behaviour I am seeing expected behaviour or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks for your help.

Solution

  • Here are two scenarios:

    Update WP8 version of app (e.g. from 1.5.0.0 to 1.6.0.0)

    All you need to do to update a package is to Replace the old one. This will keep all the details and screenshots that you previously entered intact, so you just need to enter the details (if you want) for the update (below app description). Also don't forget to update the version number of the package, but even if you don't, the use will still get notified that there is an update.

    Update a WP8 version to add specific WP8.1 features for phones that have WP8.1

    Now since you don't want to publish a completely different app with the same name and everything, you just need to add a new package to the same app. So now you will have two packages to maintain under the same app, first one is the WP8 version, and the second one is the WP8.1 version. Then if you just want to update, let's say the 8.1 version, you just replace that package with a new 8.1 package.

    If you feel like supporting WP7 as well, you add a new package for WP7 as well. So depending on which OS your user currently is, the store will manage which version of your package the user will get.

    NOTE:

    There are some special cases where multiple packages of the same version (example WP8) are uploaded, but the difference between them is the main languages. Example for games where you need custom language-bound assets, you want to keep the size of the package small, and you can't tackle the problem with just resource strings, you can upload different packages for different languages.