Like its predecessors, Construct 2026 unleashed a tsunami of reports, most tied to Microsoft’s technique of the period. For a few years–nicely over a decade, I’m making an attempt to dam this out–that technique was all about Azure and cloud computing. And that’s a subject so completely uninteresting to Home windows followers and different expertise fans that Construct grew to become a tedious slog of looking for a proverbial needle in a haystack annually. However then issues change, as they do.
From cloud to AI to AI brokers
Microsoft moved us all decidedly into a brand new period, the AI period, when it introduced a set of companies that it might later rename as Copilot in February 2023. AI is fascinating for all types of causes. For Microsoft, it was an opportunity to reassert its affect on the trade and reap the benefits of the cloud infrastructure it constructed out for Azure in expansive new methods. However the place Home windows was largely ignored throughout Microsoft’s cloud period, and thus wasn’t a sizzling matter at Construct throughout that point, AI marks a comeback for our favourite working system. Home windows, instantly, is vital once more.
That is good and unhealthy.
As I’ve stated so many instances, Microsoft didn’t simply ignore Home windows for a few years, it usually undermined the platform be participating in what we now name enshittification, a course of by which Home windows 11, on this case, was made worse for customers by means of a sequence of unhealthy, consumer hostile behaviors like pressured telemetry, monitoring utilization and promoting that info to advertisers, bundled crapware, pressured Microsoft account (MSA) sign-ins, pressured Microsoft Edge utilization, and much more. The issue acquired so unhealthy that I finally wrote a e book, De-Enshittify Windows 11 to gather all of the methods through which we, as human beings and prospects, could make this factor work the way in which we need.
However Microsoft’s newfound have to drive AI to the shopper in methods it will probably at the least partially personal and management triggered a rethinking about how Home windows 11 suits into the grander scheme of issues. At first, Microsoft’s have to jam AI down its prospects’ collective throats was nothing greater than additional enshittification, seen extra clearly in a painful episode in late 2023 when it delivered the primary model of Copilot for Home windows 11 alongside dozens of different new options in a standard month-to-month cumulative replace forward of a significant (model 23H2) OS improve that might have sometimes delivered these modifications. Microsoft did that particularly to stop its company prospects from skipping the 23H2 launch and delaying the rollout of Copilot for one more yr. And it has since modified the way it releases new options into Home windows 11 to make sure that slow-moving firms can not purposefully persist with older OS variations to keep away from getting these new options.
Many have theories concerning the modifications we’re seeing this yr. My guess is on company prospects, Microsoft’s most vital prospects, lastly pushing again on the enshittification, most particularly the low high quality of the chaotic characteristic updates that Microsoft was forcing on them each single month. However prospects not adopting Copilot was maybe as huge an issue. As AI developed from chatbots and generative AI to brokers that may work together with apps and companies in additional refined, hands-off methods, Microsoft began needing a extra stable basis for this work in its core shopper platform. And if it may offload as a lot AI exercise as potential from costly cloud datacenters to no-cost AI that’s regionally put in on PCs, all the higher.
Regardless of the causes, by the point 2025 was coming to an in depth, we had a newly extra highly effective Pavan Davuluri reorganizing the Home windows group in order that it may flip issues round and do one thing it had not performed at this scale since Home windows 7, a product that was kicked off internally nearly precisely 20 years in the past. It could give attention to high quality however addressing the ache factors that prospects had been complaining about for years. The lacking options. The poor efficiency and latency of apps and core UI surfaces. Even a number of the enshittification.
After which one thing weird occurred. As this new and newly energized Home windows group started participating with fans on-line, by way of the Home windows Insider Program weblog and on social media, one overly-enthusiastic venture lead declared that Microsoft, which had made Home windows 11 an enormous tent melting pot of apps of each type possible, was engaged on “one hundred pc native” Home windows apps. This appeared far-fetched to me, provided that there isn’t any such factor as native apps in Home windows any extra, not likely, whereas Microsoft’s most up-to-date and fashionable app improvement framework, the Home windows App SDK, is horrible in so some ways. Like Home windows 11 itself, it was run by C-teamers (not even B-teamers) with no energy to vary something and no capacity to enhance issues for builders. Folks would make guarantees to “repair” the Home windows App SDK. After which they’d quietly go away Microsoft as a result of it was unattainable to try this beneath the previous system and nothing would change.
However one thing did change. Davuluri’s reorg introduced modifications to Home windows app improvement too. And that imply that the Home windows App SDK and its WinUI 3 UI framework would get consideration, identical to Home windows 11. Microsoft started plotting to repair the ache factors with “native” Home windows app improvement–I hate calling it that, however you’ll be able to’t battle the language of its makers–and in the identical approach. That’s, it’s not releasing a brand new factor, on this case one more Home windows app improvement framework. It’s fixing the present factor. It’s going to enhance the Home windows App SDK and WinUI 3 by addressing developer ache factors and adapting these framework for the AI period.
How we acquired right here
Once I take into consideration the work Microsoft is doing to enhance Home windows 11 for its customers, I’m reminded of my position as a canary on this coalmine. Again in December, months earlier than Pavan Davuluri made any public guarantees about deal with ache factors, I observed that Microsoft had taken steps to handle the pressured OneDrive Folder Backup problem that grew to become my central problem with enshittification in Home windows 11. To today, Microsoft has by no means formally mentioned that work, however it’s there, and by the point Davuluri began talking vaguely about specializing in high quality in 2026, I may see all types of hints of change, a lot of that are tied to safety and reliability.
Since then, Davuluri went public with the modifications his crew was planning after which it simply began implementing these modifications, with some low-level reliability and efficiency modifications already showing in steady and greater options, like redesigned Home windows Replace, Begin, and Taskbar experiences, now making their approach by means of the Insider Program. I’ve already written about all that many instances. But it surely’s a brand new period, and it’s principally excellent information.
I’m not a software program developer. And but, due to years of labor on software program improvement tasks, a lot of that are Notepad clones like .NETpad and WinUIpad, I really feel like I’ve performed the same position as canary. When Microsoft introduced that it was bringing WPF, nonetheless my favourite Home windows app framework, again from the lifeless and modernizing it for Home windows 11, I couldn’t have been happier. I instantly got down to modernize .NETpad after which spent the following a number of months doing so. And continued that work into 2024 earlier than realizing that there have been some fashionable options that merely would by no means work in WPF. And so I switched to the Home windows App SDK and WinUI, renamed the app to WinUIpad, and spent the following yr or extra engaged on that.
Which was troublesome. As a result of the Home windows App SDK is horrible. Trendy, sure. However convoluted and lacking too many fundamental options from previous framework (like printing) to rely. It’s been irritating, which I assume is a key element of the Home windows/.NET developer expertise for many actual builders too. Truly, I don’t need to assume that. Microsoft has acknowledged this many instances, simply because it’s promised to repair points, partly by open-sourcing this framework in order that the group everybody was counting on anyway may play a extra formal position in its evolution and future.
Construct 2026 and the way forward for fashionable, native Home windows apps
Earlier this yr, Microsoft made some quiet Home windows App SDK-adjacent strikes associated to the information that simply got here out of Construct 2026. There was the Home windows App Improvement (WinApp) CLI that Microsoft introduced this previous January, after which the Microsoft Retailer CLI, which initially appeared like a superfluous various to the Home windows Package deal Supervisor (winget).
After which we had the a number of Home windows developer bulletins throughout the Construct 2026 keynote, some tied to Terminal, some tied to the Home windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), and a few tied to much more new CLIs, or command line interfaces. However all of them have one factor in frequent, AI. Microsoft is increasing entry to what have been beforehand Copilot+ PC unique APIs to PCs with highly effective CPUs and GPUs, too. And it’s delivering on its promise to combine AI brokers into Home windows, although now we all know this will likely be performed securely due to the Microsoft Execution Containers (MXC) SDK.
One of many CLIs Microsoft introduced, the Windows Developer Skills, was so fascinating that I dove headfirst into that very same day. That is primarily a plugin for GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, or ChatGPT Codex, and another appropriate AI-based pair programmer agent that grounds the AI within the Home windows App SDK and WinUI and allows you to vibe-code a brand new, fashionable Home windows 11 app proper from the command line. Which is precisely what I did: In lower than one hour, I used this factor to create an inexpensive facsimile of the .NETpad/WinUIpad apps it had taken me–once more, not an actual programmer–years to make.
That is all very thrilling. However I would like extra particulars on all of.
For instance, that API factor I discussed above is clearly tied to the brand new Nvidia Arm-based {hardware} that was additionally introduced this week, with first-party and third-party PCs coming later this yr. And although Microsoft vaguely admitted to creating some platform-level modifications for this, it by no means defined how/if this can change Copilot+ PC as a model or designation.
On the developer entrance, I may see that the mixture of the Home windows Developer Expertise, which depends on the WinApp CLI within the background, and no matter AI pair programmer resolution (I occurred to make use of Claude Code) was a bit piece, however nonetheless only a piece, of an even bigger puzzle. And because the first day of Construct 2026 drew to an in depth, I started questioning what we’d study the following day by way of no matter periods. There may be at all times extra info within the Construct periods.
On Wednesday, day two of Construct, I introduced up the occasion web site and looked for Pavan Davuluri to see whether or not he would seem on the present, as he wasn’t within the keynote like I had anticipated. In spite of everything, his look at Ignite 2025 in November was wonderful, and although the subject, including agentic AI to Home windows 11, was controversial, what he and the crew introduced is sensible and doesn’t appear threatening or no matter. However he didn’t come up within the search of Construct 2026. So I acquired on with the day, my afternoon dominated by a three-hour Home windows Weekly recording, and earmarked some Home windows-related periods to look at later.
As Home windows Weekly was winding down, I noticed a notification in my tech feed for one more new Microsoft CLI known as Build CLI. Just like the Home windows Builders Expertise I used to vibe-code one more Notepad clone, this can be a plug-in for GitHub Copilot, that means it can additionally work with Claude Code and ChatGPT Codex, that grounds the AI within the content material from Construct 2026 (and Construct 2025 and Ignite 2025) so you discover info you need from a command line.
Hm. This appeared vaguely foolish to me, since you can easily search the Build website for sessions and download relevant videos, transcripts, and presentations. However then once more, AI is commonly used to summarize, and I may see the place asking it for the very best periods to study no matter matters could possibly be helpful. Additionally, you’ll be able to join a software program venture to the Construct content material by way of this CLI after which ask it questions which are related to the work you’re at present doing.
And no matter, I really like CLIs, so I needed to attempt it.
To get began, I first needed to join the Construct CLI to Claude Code. So I ran the next two instructions from a Terminal window.
claude plugin market add microsoft/Construct-CLI
claude plugin set up microsoft-events@microsoft-events-marketplace
Then, I ran Claude Code with this command line to floor it solely within the Construct content material.
claude /microsoft-events:microsoft-build
Not that it issues, however the documentation on the Construct CLI web page on GitHub is fallacious with regards to Claude Code and it omits that final step, which is clearly essential. However that’s how you actually do it. (It’s also possible to simply begin Claude Code and ask it about Construct, and it’ll ask if you wish to load that ability.)
After an annoying sequence of confirmations, it lastly spit out a pleasant checklist of the main bulletins, sorted by matters like Home windows, Copilot & GitHub, and no matter else, and requested me if I needed to “dig into any of those bulletins, pull session particulars, or search Study docs for technical depth on a particular matter.”
Good.
My first request was maybe overly-broad.
Are you able to present me extra concerning the Home windows periods?
Claude Code went by means of the acquainted machinations, requiring additional confirmations, after which spent over 2 minutes perambulating or no matter earlier than lastly returning a prolonged checklist of issues, properly laid out with text-based packing containers.
The conclusion was good, although: “The massive themes throughout all Home windows periods: Brokers on Home windows (Home windows 365 for Brokers, Aion, MCP, OpenClaw/Claws runtime), Native AI (Foundry Native, Home windows ML, 2-bit fashions), WSL/Containers, and Arm/Snapdragon migration tooling. Need me to tug the complete description for any particular session?”
No. To date that is info I may have principally gotten with a easy (and quicker) search on the Construct web site. However since I used to be right here, I made a decision to slender the search.
how about any periods concerning the Home windows App SDK and WinUI
This one didn’t take fairly as lengthy, about 28 seconds, although it, too, would have been quicker from the net. However what it got here up with was nonetheless helpful.
And that’s once I noticed it. Chris Anderson. A dwelling legend. Certainly, this might not be the identical Chris Anderson who stood on a stage at PDC 2003 with Don Field and hand-coded Avalon UI code–what grew to become WPF and XAML–to create the primary reside demos of actual, operating Longhorn apps utilizing nothing greater than Notepad and a command line window. This stays the best single reside coding demo within the historical past of Microsoft and doubtless your entire trade.
Properly, it is the identical Chris Anderson. One way or the other, extremely, he’s nonetheless at Microsoft. And although his session, a prerecorded video, is less than 30 minutes long, it’s predictably a superb watch and nicely value your time. Anderson, a vp of software program engineering at Microsoft, begins off in probably the most humble trend possible by describing himself as “an engineer on the WinUI crew,” as if he have been a school intern and never the voice of expertise and experience. After which he lays it down. What he supplies, in essence, is readability and surety. It’s a message beleaguered Home windows builders want to listen to.
Listed here are the important thing factors, as organized by my mind and never AI.
WinUI is it. There’s no new framework coming down the pike. WinUI is the fashionable UI framework for Home windows and Home windows App SDK is its underlying app framework. Microsoft has “no intention of constructing a brand new framework.”
Now it’s actually known as WinUI. Microsoft is “dropping the quantity,” so WinUI 3 is gone, and now it’s simply WinUI.
WinUI is coming to extra of Home windows 11. As Microsoft already defined (and somewhere else, hinted), it’s integrating WinUI into the Home windows 11 shell “at a a lot quicker price.” Per the “one hundred pc native app” pledge, “you’re going to see quite a lot of the first-party options coming from Microsoft being constructed on prime of WinUI.”
Microsoft is addressing the ache factors. Microsoft is fixing low-level points with WinUI–“efficiency, fundamentals, high quality, fixing quite a lot of bugs”–and suggestions and including lacking options in order that builders will be “be productive on prime of WinUI.” But it surely’s additionally addressing “characteristic gaps.” It introduced two new controls, DataGrid and Charting, at Construct, however there are “only a ton of characteristic gaps within the platform, every part from what are you doing on system tray … to restricted use of home windows.” Microsoft is addressing these too, so builders received’t want to show to third-party libraries to handle lacking options.
Microsoft is enhancing the migration expertise. Which will likely be fascinating, since there isn’t any method to simply migrate from older frameworks like WPF to Home windows App SDK/WinUI immediately. Amongst different issues, it can make it simpler so as to add bits of WinUI to older frameworks like WinForms whereas additionally doing the other. Ditto for WPF.
This work is occurring now, in public, with transparency. Microsoft has moved into a brand new part in its transition to totally open sourcing the Home windows App SDK and WinUI, and although it’s already publishing the modifications it’s made to the GitHub repository so builders can use them in Experimental preview, it can quickly work brazenly with the repository in steady too.
The enhancements to Home windows App SDK/WinUI will likely be pushed to a point by how AI has modified the event course of. “AI has modified the way in which I write software program,” he says. “I hardly ever sort semicolons anymore. I’m nearly at all times utilizing AI to drive a lot of the code that I’m writing. I take advantage of it for code evaluations, for writing assessments.”
Microsoft is bringing React-style declarative UI improvement to WinUI. Right now, WinUI apps (like WPF) use the XML-based XAML language to declare what app UIs seem like. However newer frameworks, like React, Jetpack Compose, and SwiftUI use a extra fashionable method to write declarative UI code utilizing the identical programming languages builders use for logic code (JavaScript, Kotlin, and Swift, respectively). This technique is extra versatile and responsive than XAML. And it integrates higher with the CLI-based coding instruments I’ve written about right here and elsewhere. And so Microsoft is including this fashion of UI improvement to WinUI: It is possible for you to to jot down declarative C#-based UI code as a substitute of XAML (and, no, XAML isn’t going away). It is testing this new system now publicly (a reader tipped me off to this final Friday; I had by no means heard of it). However this isn’t simply an experiment, it’s taking place. An enormous chunk of this session is Anderson utilizing this fashion of coding to create and edit demo apps.
In different phrases, sure, Microsoft is doing with Home windows App SDK/WinUI what it’s doing with Home windows (and, much less associated, Xbox). How lengthy this can take–or final, one at all times questions these items–and the way far it goes stay an open query. However simply seeing that Chris Anderson is concerned right here is invigorating and a welcome signal that this work is actual and never simply fan service.
My central place on native Home windows app improvement is unchanged: Few builders ought to even contemplate creating a brand new app that runs solely on Home windows, and few would. However this can be a much better strategy to modernizing present apps and codebases than the WPF modernization effort that fell of a cliff after a couple of months of exercise two years in the past. (It’s notable that the following two .NET releases, .NET 10 and 11, have supplied mainly no enhancements to this work.) And one could make the argument that doing this work so Microsoft’s builders can lastly undertake WinUI extra broadly is likewise priceless to a point, just like the argument that protecting the money-losing Floor PC enterprise round may make sense if solely so Microsoft staff can use a laptop computer with a Microsoft brand on it on-stage throughout trade occasions. Consuming your personal dogfood, as we used to name this, says extra to the skin world than simply speaking about it does.
This is only one of many developer advances introduced at Construct, and plenty of of these items are evolving in actual time and can ship someplace down the highway. I count on to dive into another associated matters quickly, given how vital this work is to the platform and thus to everybody who makes use of it, and never simply builders. The extra you realize, the extra you realize.