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blazormauicode-signingmsixappxmanifest

Generating a msix package for a .NET MAUI Blazor application and signing it separately

Problem

I'm no longer able to generate a signed msix package from Visual Studio, since the signing process now requires a a piece of hardware, and I don't have that hardware. I need to generate the msix package and send it to someone else to that they can sign it.

Possible solutions that I can think of

  1. I could use a self signed certificate, generate the msix package and then send it to the signer. However, I don't want the self signed certificate to be part of the final msix package, so it sounds like a bad idea.
  2. I came across a text (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/msix/package/unsigned-package) that supposedly explains how to generate an unsigned msix package. However, it looks like it is only meant to explain how to install the package.
  3. Maybe I could somehow zip my project files and send it to the signer, but I don't think they could create an msix file from them. They have specifically requested an msix file, so they probably have a code signing software where they have to click on a specific msix file to sign it.

Any suggestions?

Solution

  • I found an answere.

    I went to the project file for my .NET MAUI Blazor project and set this row:

    <AppxPackageSigningEnabled>False</AppxPackageSigningEnabled>

    After this I could use dotnet publish to publish an unsigned version.