Microsoft has recently made good on its promise to speed up Windows 11 apps that have been suffering from performance issues. The fix is currently in testing and should roll out soon. However, that’s not the only performance improvement on the horizon.
The company is also showing that they’re paying attention to performance on a broader scale, with performance improvements coming to the Microsoft Store. According to the company’s dev blog, Microsoft is introducing a new path for app developers to migrate their UWP apps to .NET 9 and Native AOT.
This particular path makes it possible to get apps working on .NET 9 and Native AOT in two phases rather than with one monolithic change. This should make it easier to later switch to WinUI 3.
Apps on .NET 9 and Native AOT have better performance than UWP apps on .NET Native, and Native AOT is actively being improved over time. This is a change that should be pursued by most UWP app developers at some point.
Interestingly, the dev blog post also mentions that the Microsoft Store is going through this exact migration. The Microsoft Store is currently being switched over to .NET 9 and we can expect to see a new version of the app running on Native AOT “in the near future.”
When the new version of the Microsoft Store is released, it will most likely roll out to Windows Insiders first before reaching the general public.