Can Windows Store applications be built with Mingw?

Question

Is there a way to build Windows Store applications with the Mingw toolchain? (And ultimately cross compile them from mingw on Linux, since if it works in one Mingw toolchain it should work in another.)

I guess one requirement is to stick to the API:s allowed in the Windows Store app sandbox, but what other things are there to consider before distribution to the store? XAML? 32 or 64 bit code?

Since Mingw C++ is not link compatible with MSVC++, I assume plain C programs without WRL would be the easiest way to achieve this?

Answer 1

You would need to use the Windows Runtime C++ Template Library (WRL) directly, you wouldn't be able to use C++/CX as Mingw doesn't support it. Other than that, I think you just need the Windows 8 SDK, then you need to configure Mingw to use the headers and libraries. Also, you won't be able to use XAML to describe your user interface, you'll have to manually create your UI in code.

Rather than attempt to write the entire application with mingw and cross compile it with linux, you can write your core libraries with mingw, then write a simple UI wrapper over the libraries using Visual Studio Express (free). That way you can use all the nice stuff like XAML and ref-counted instances.

This is the approach I have taken - using libraries written in C++, and then a separate UI project (using XAML) which references the other libraries. It works well.