Remote debug UWP app on Windows Server 2016

Question

The goal

I would like to use a Windows Server 2016 (x64) for remote debugging of UWP applications. The reason? My working PC still runs a Windows 7 instance and it is not possible to deploy an UWP app on a Windows 7 machine.

The problem

I have already installed the Remote Tools For Visual Studio 2015 on the Windows Server 2016 machine and started it on port 4020. Authentication mode was set to "None". I have enabled Developer mode on the server as well. Also I have set up my project in Visual Studio to use the remote machine for debugging.

The problem is, whenever I try to deploy (just deploy, not even debug) my solution to the server, the following happens:

Visual Studio shows the following output:

Deploy started: Project: MyProject.UI.Uwp, Configuration: Debug x86
Starting remote deployment...
Reading package recipe file "C:\SourceCode\MyProject\MyProject.UI.Uwp\bin\x86\Debug\MyProject.UI.Uwp.build.appxrecipe"...

and then hangs forever.

In the meantime, remote tools on the server show the following output:

UserAbc connected.

This indicates there must be at least some communication between my Windows 7 PC and the target Windows Server 2016 machine.

No error message is displayed whatsoever (neither in Visual Studio, nor in the Remote Debugger).

The question

Any idea why the deployment hangs forever without an error message? Or am I trying to achieve an impossible task? Is the Windows Server 2016 capable of running UWP apps at all?

Update

I installed VS 2015 Update 3 directly on the Windows Server 2016. I was able to create and debug a simple UWP app directly on the server so the server is clearly able to run an UWP app. However I am still unable to make the remote debugging working. Maybe the problem is completely on my local Windows 7 PC and has nothing to do with the Windows Server. It is strange that the process hangs while "Reading package recipe file". Could it be that an antivirus is intercepting?

@KenTucker I believe you are right, a default server installation only has the core installed which will not allow desktop apps to run. You need to install the desktop experience to enable this. — SilentStorm
@SilentStorm, good point, however we have got a version with Desktop Experience. — Anton
What is the Visual Studio version you are using on Windows 7? I think this issue may related to your Windows 7 environment. — Jay Zuo
In my experience, In 2015, I've developed and debugged my uwp app with Win7 dev system with VS2015 RC and Win10 target system. it worked well. @Anton, have you tried to remote debug non-uwp app - like as simple winforms App? If it also failed, it may be a generic remote debug issue, not uwp specific one. — Mamoru Satoh

Jay Zuo Jay Zuo · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-16T03:23:05

Thanks for your feedback. There is a similar issue when I try to deploy the UWP project to a remote machine on Windows 7. We have communicated about this using our internal channel. Unfortunately, Visual Studio 2015 or Visual Studio 2017 doing UWP development on Windows 7 is not a recommend scenario.

For Visual Studio 2017, using Tools for UWP App Development is not applicable on Windows 7. See Visual Studio 2017 Support for Windows Development.

For Visual Studio 2015, the official support for Windows Universal is "Build only". We can use Visual Studio 2015 to build UWP apps on Windows 7, but some other Visual Studio features for Windows Universal development may be degraded. See Visual Studio 2015 Support for Windows Universal, Windows Store, and Windows Phone App Development.

To develop Windows Universal Apps, Windows 10 is strongly recommended. With Windows 10, you can get the best experience of UWP development.