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Setup for building windows application

Building instructions to build electron app to appx format for distribution in the windows store

Prerequisites​

  • Windows 11
  • Windows Powershell (preinstalled)
  • Admin privileges. If you don't have admin privileges, open a ticket to IT
  • Node installed in your system. Recommended to use nvm-windows. Can be installed with winget with winget install CoreyButler.NVMforWindows
  • Enable developer mode
    • Open the settings app. Go to System > For developers. Enable toggle for "Developer Mode"
info

Windows APPX bundles for the windows store can only be built in a windows machine

Setup packaging dependencies​

Windows​

  1. Download Visual Studio installer 2026 or latest visual studio 2026
  2. Click install/modify on Visual Studio 2026
  • Under workloads check "Desktop development with C++" image
  • Go to individual components and ensure "Windows SDK (10.0.22621.0)" is checked
  1. Click on the "install while downloading" button
  2. When it is done, you will need to restart your system for some changes to take effect
tip

For latest information on the build process you can check chromium build instruction for Visual Studio

Analytics Dependencies​

Make sure you are connected to HP with GlobalProtect (for example http://ams-houston.ext.hp.com/).

Add these two sources to Nuget Package Manager in Visual Studio:

You will need to install

  • HP.Jarvis.DataCollection, version 3.13.1.710 and
  • HP.Jarvis.ValueStore, version 2.3.3.238-alpha as specified in native/application/native.csproj.

Setup development certificate​

We need to setup a windows store certificate for development in order to use electron-forge make command.

  1. Install electron-windows-store package if it is not already available in package.json
pnpm install -D electron-windows-store
warning

The following commands need to be run using windows powershell (powershell.exe).

Certificate creation will fail with the newer powershell core (pwsh.exe).

  1. Enable execution policy to run powershell scripts
Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
  1. Run the command from an elevated powershell instance
tip

You can open an administrator terminal with right click on the windows start button, then select "Terminal (Admin)" or you can enable sudo for windows following the instructions

pnpx electron-windows-store

Creating a development certificate​

You will be prompted the a few questions the first time you run it

Did you download and install the Desktop App Converter? It is not required to run this tool. (y/n)

Enter n

You need to install a development certificate in order to run your app. Would you like us to create one? (Y/n)

Enter y

Please enter your publisher identity: (CN=developmentca)

Press enter to accept default

Please enter the location of your Windows Kit's bin folder: (C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\x64)

Press enter to accept default if you use the default location when installing visual studio dependencies in step 1. If you used a custom path, please enter that path here, then press enter.

Creating Certficate When asked to enter a password, please select "None"

A window will popup asking you to enter a password. Select the button that says None

image

Please enter the path to your built Electron app:

You can accept the default

Please enter the path to your output directory:

You can accept the default

Please enter your app's package name (name of your exe - without '.exe'):

Enter hp-channels

Please enter your app's package version: (1.0.0.0)

You can accept the default

Verifying certificate​

The process will complete. You can ensure it was successful by checking these

  • $HOME\.electron-windows-store file with a content like:

Get-Content $HOME\.electron-windows-store

{
  "desktopConverter": false,
  "expandedBaseImage": false,
  "publisher": "CN=developmentca",
  "windowsKit": "C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Windows Kits\\10\\bin\\x64",
  "devCert": "C:\\Users\\eduardo\\AppData\\Roaming\\electron-windows-store\\developmentca\\developmentca.pfx"
}
  • C:\Users\<USER>\AppData\Roaming\electron-windows-store\developmentca directory with the content
Get-ChildItem $env:AppData\electron-windows-store\developmentca

        Directory: C:\Users\eduardo\AppData\Roaming\electron-windows-store\developmentca


Mode                LastWriteTime         Length Name
----                -------------         ------ ----
-a---         21-May-25  10:51 AM            809 developmentca.cer
-a---         21-May-25  10:51 AM           2606 developmentca.pfx
-a---         21-May-25  10:51 AM           1196 developmentca.pvk

If you had any issue when creating the certificate, simply delete the file and directory mentioned above and run electron-windows-store again.

tip

In powershell you can use

  • $HOME variable to always refer to the home user directory
  • $env:AppData environment variable to always refer to the AppData/Roaming directory

Additional documentation​

If you have issues, please check the official documentation of the tools used