Showing tag results for Runtime

Oct 20, 2026
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Activatable Extension Points

Howard Kapustein

We often talk about "running an application", "launching an app", or "starting an app". This conjures up visions of spinning up a new process, giving the application life. For packaged applications, Windows has a specific term for bringing an application to life: activation. Bringing a packaged process to life involves more than ordinary unpacka...

Oct 13, 2026
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Is it MSIX? Part 3: Find Package and Application Identity with TASKLIST and PowerShell

Howard Kapustein

We previously determined how to programmatically retrieve a packaged process' package and application identity. Now let's find MSIX package identity using existing tools. TASKLIST.EXE Using the packaged app from our previous example, we know the "image name" (aka executable filename) and that its PID (process ID) is 7664. lists packaged proces...

Oct 6, 2026
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Is it MSIX? Part 2: Finding Package Identity with APIs

Howard Kapustein

We previously determined how to tell if a process is packaged or unpackaged using Task Manager. Now let's find its package and application identity in code. Windows provides APIs to retrieve package and application identity for a process: If you prefer WinRT: Kernel mode What about kernel mode? Nearly all MSIX APIs require a user-mode calle...

Sep 29, 2026
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Is it MSIX? Part 1: How to Tell if a Process Is Packaged

Howard Kapustein

Overheard in a recent conversation: Enterprise Administrator: "The ***redacted*** application is awesome, but it really should be an MSIX package." Microsoft Developer: "Ummm, it already is." That sparked another question: How can you tell if an application is packaged or unpackaged? Turns out there's a few simple w...