Windows Template Studio (aka WinTS) installs into your existing Visual Studio development environment. If you're missing any of the below, you can get everything from the Windows Dev Center Download page.
Visual Studio 2019
- Although VS 2019.2 is the minimum version, we recommend using WinTS with the latest Visual Studio Update..NET Framework 4.7.2
- Install
Universal Windows Platform development
workload on Visual Studio 2019 to use UWP templates. Windows 10, version 1903 (version 10.0.18362.0)
or later.- Install the
Windows SDK Version 10.0.19041.0
.
- Install the
.NET desktop development
workload on Visual Studio 2019 to use WPF (.NET Core) templates. - Install the .NET Core 3.1 SDK.
-
Ensure that your development computer has
Windows 10, version 1809 (build 17763)
, or a later OS version installed. -
Install Visual Studio 2019, version 16.10 Preview (or later) if you haven't done so already.
-
You must include the following components when installing Visual Studio:
- On the
Workloads
tab, make sureUniversal Windows Platform development
is selected. - On the
Individual components
tab, make sureWindows 10 SDK (10.0.19041.0)
is selected in theSDKs, libraries, and frameworks
section.
To build .NET apps, you must also include the following components:
- .NET Desktop Development workload.
To build C++ apps, you must also include the following components:
- Desktop development with C++ workload.
- The
C++ (v142) Universal Windows Platform tools
optional component for the Universal Windows Platform development workload.
- On the
-
If you previously installed the WinUI 3 Preview extension from an earlier WinUI 3 preview release, uninstall the extension. For more information about how to uninstall an extension, see Manage extensions for Visual Studio.
-
Make sure your system has a NuGet package source enabled for nuget.org. For more information, see Common NuGet configurations
You have two ways of acquiring the extension:
- Inside Visual Studio. Select
Extensions -> Manage Extensions
. Select theOnline
node and search for Windows Template Studio then click Download. - Direct link and manually install from Visual Studio Gallery.
Install the Visual Studio Extension for Windows Template Studio by downloading the VSIX
from the Visual Studio Gallery.
Once installed, open Visual Studio 2019 and select Create a new Project
or File -> New Project
and you should see Windows Template Studio as an option. You can use the search box or the filters to get to the Windows Template Studio project templates.
To add pages and features to an existing Windows Template Studio project, select the project and choose Windows Template Studio -> New page
, New feature
, New service
, or New testing project
from the context menu. For more info on adding new items see here.
If you created a WinUI 3 app you can also add the following items from Visual Studio add new item dialog.
- Blank page
- Blank Window (Desktop)
- Custom Control
- Resource Dictionary
- Resources File
- User Control
- Nightly: https://www.myget.org/F/windows-template-studio-nightly/vsix/
- Pre-release (stable): https://www.myget.org/F/windows-template-studio-prerelease/vsix/
The Pre-release build version allows you to get updates with stable features not officially released yet (so, they are not definitive and may change).
This feed will have stable extension versions so it is not thought to have breaking changes (and can be installed side by side with the official one), anyway, installing this extension is at your own risk.
Open Visual Studio 2019 and go to Extensions -> Manage Extensions
, then click on Change your settings for Extensions
(bottom left of the Manage Extensions
window) and Add
an Additional Extension Gallery
.
Then, go again to Extensions -> Manage Extensions
and using the recently added online gallery (added under the Online
node), download and install the Windows Template Studio extension. Note that you will likely need to restart Visual Studio for the install to complete.
Once installed, you will see a new Project Template which allows you to access to the available templates: Pre-Release version uses the VNext Template Repository.
You can start working with Windows Template Studio by cloning our repo and working locally with the code and the available templates. If you plan to contribute, please follow the contribution guidelines
If you want to have updates from in-progress changes. This feed will have the result of the daily dev-branch integration, so expect some instability. This extension can be installed side by side with the official and pre-release, anyway, installing this extension is at your own risk.