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I planned to create a Windows 8 Store App but reluctantly had to switch to desktop application. I found that Windows 8 Store Apps fail to detect second screen, which is necessary for me.

The intention still is to mimic the behaviour of Windows Store App as much as possible. Partly to educate myself but also to use a modern nice design. I use WPF with very similar design (App bars, Navigation bar, snappy await-async pattern, etc)

Now I come to the point where I need to store settings! I would really like to use the very convenient central storage available through Microsoft Live login. Is that possible even if I don't have Windows Store App? Clients might be Windows 7 or Windows 8. Can I make the user login to Microsoft Live and use these facilities?

Jakob Lithner
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Many WinRT APIs are available from desktop applications, in addition to Windows Store applications. Windows.Storage.ApplicationData appears to support desktop apps. Look under the "Requirements" section in the documentation:

Minimum supported client: Windows 8 [Windows Store apps, desktop apps]

Someone at Intel posted on how to use WinRT APIs from desktop apps. The post is from September, 2012, and the screenshots appear to be for an older version of the MSDN documentation. Just keep that in mind.

Dave Bennett of Microsoft has a useful blog post which will introduce you to roaming your app data.

I may have misunderstood you, but I think what I mention above is what you want instead of using the Live Connect APIs.

Matt Harrington
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  • Thanks for your informative answer! I did read Dave Bennetts blog post before but missed the Requirement section in MSDN documentation. It is good that it is possible to do, but in my case I don't want to exclude Windows 7 applications yet, so to ONLY target Windows 8 will not be worth it. – Jakob Lithner Jan 10 '13 at 09:02
  • Happy to help. If you want to revisit your initial goal of building a Windows Store app, you can get free consultations from http://aka.ms/genappsignup. Feel free to contact me through the link I list in my StackOverflow profile. – Matt Harrington Jan 11 '13 at 02:28