Windows phone 8.1 Silverlight app on windows 10 tablet

3
votes

I have a Windows phone 8.1 Silverlight application.

Now I need to make it run also on windows 10 phones and tablets. I checked and the app is available on windows 10 phones, even if deployed for windows 8.1 but it seems like I can't install it on windows 10 tablets.

My question is pretty simple:

  • Is there a "fast way" for converting the 8.1 project to UWP?
  • Can I deploy my app for tablets without re-writing all the code?

Thanks all

1
c#uwpwindows-10-mobile
Short answer: Probably not. Is ist 8.1 Store, or 8.1 Silverlight? – Kai Brummund
@KaiBrummund thanks for replying, It's 8.1 silverlight. I will probably need to rewrite a lot of code so – Pier Giorgio Misley
Yes, sadly. If it was a store app, you'd probably get around with just changing a few lines and namespaces, but with silverlight, it is more of a complete rewrite... – Kai Brummund
@KaiBrummund thanks a lot, It will be a bloody bath I guess. If you wanna answer I'll check it as the correct one – Pier Giorgio Misley
Ah, just posted an answer before reading @KaiBrummund's second comment. Pier, you might want to update the question to state that it's a Win 8.1 Silverlight app so others have full context from the question. – AlexDrenea

1 Answers

2
votes

This question is oddly similar to one that I answered just yesterday. It's not really a duplicate so I will restate the answer here along with a link to the other question (1)

Unfortunately there is no easy and fully automated way to port your Silverlight app to UWP mostly because the API footprint has changed and updated between the 2 platforms. There are a lot of similarities but also a lot of breaking changes that require some manual changes.

here is Microsoft's guidance for this particular upgrade path.

From the article above:

Note This guide is designed to help you port your Windows Phone Silverlight app to Windows 10 manually. In addition to using the information in this guide to port your app, you can try the developer preview of Mobilize.NET's Silverlight Bridge to help automate the porting process. This tool analyzes your app's source code and converts references to Windows Phone Silverlight controls and APIs to their UWP counterparts. Because this tool is still in developer preview, it does not yet handle all conversion scenarios. However, most developers should be able to save some time and effort by starting with this tool. To try the developer preview, visit Mobilize.NET's website.

[1] Can a Silverlight out-of-browser app be converted to Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app?