For Microsoft, the future isn’t only about UWA (Universal Windows App) as Win32 and Forms are also important for the platform. During Build 2020 developer conference keynotes, Micorosft announced that Project Reunion, which according to the company, is an “evolution” of the Windows developer platform.
With Project Reunion, Microsoft will reduce fragmentation between Win32 and the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) APIs.
Microsoft’s Project Reunion will make it easier for developers to build a Windows app based on both Win32 and UWP APIs. Project Reunion unifies existing Win32 and UWP APIs and makes them available via tools like NuGet, which provides a common platform.
In simple terms, Project Reunion streamlines the development of Win32 and UWP and the result is just “Windows apps.”
Developers can now modernize their existing apps with new APIs of both UWP and Win32 for Windows 10. Project Reunion also introduces backwards-compatibility for making Windows apps and allows developers to continue supporting older versions of Windows 10 such as version 1703.
Microsoft is also decoupling the APIs from Windows 10 updates, which is a significant change as it allows the company to make improvements to the app development platform without requiring a feature update.
In addition, Project Reunion will embed Chromium-based WebView in apps that load a webpage.
WebView 2 is the first major component of Project Reunion and will be separate from the Windows 10 so that it can be maintained across all platforms without requiring a feature update.
You will get the full functionality in all versions of Windows 10 when developers implement it into one of their apps.
Project Reunion platform (Win32 + UWP APIs) isn’t tied to the operating system. Microsoft will continue to make improvements to the platform without Windows 10 major updates and apps will offer the same features set across all supported versions of the OS.
