07.08.2020

Making Windows Apps In C On Mac

Making Windows Apps In C On Mac 4,8/5 1690 votes

The Mac has plenty of games, but it'll always get the short end of the stick compared to Windows. If you want to play the latest games on your Mac, you have no choice but to install Windows .. or do you?

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There are a few ways you can play Windows games on your Mac without having to dedicate a partition to Boot Camp or giving away vast amounts of hard drive space to a virtual machine app like VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop. Here are a few other options for playing Windows games on your Mac without the hassle or expense of having to install Windows.

  1. If you’re making the switch from a Mac to a Windows 10 PC, you’ll need to create a Microsoft account in order to sign into various services. Here's a step by step tutorial on how to set up an.
  2. Mar 25, 2019  How to Run Windows on a Mac. Or click on its menu bar icon to enter 'Coherence Mode,' where you can launch Windows apps in their own window on your Mac desktop.

GeForce Now

PC gaming on Mac? Yes you can, thanks to Nvidia's GeForce Now. The service allows users to play PC games from Steam or Battle.net on macOS devices. Better still, the graphic power of these games resides on Nvidia's servers. The biggest drawback: the service remains in beta, and there's been no announcement when the first full release is coming or what a monthly subscription will cost.

For now, at least, the service is free to try and enjoy. All supported GeForce NOW titles work on Macs, and yes, there are plenty of them already available!

The Wine Project

The Mac isn't the only computer whose users have wanted to run software designed for Windows. More than 20 years ago, a project was started to enable Windows software to work on POSIX-compliant operating systems like Linux. It's called The Wine Project, and the effort continues to this day. OS X is POSIX-compliant, too (it's Unix underneath all of Apple's gleam, after all), so Wine will run on the Mac also.

Wine is a recursive acronym that stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator. It's been around the Unix world for a very long time, and because OS X is a Unix-based operating system, it works on the Mac too.

Making Windows Apps In C On Mac

As the name suggests, Wine isn't an emulator. The easiest way to think about it is as a compatibility layer that translates Windows Application Programming Interface (API) calls into something that the Mac can understand. So when a game says 'draw a square on the screen,' the Mac does what it's told.

You can use straight-up Wine if you're technically minded. It isn't for the faint of heart, although there are instructions online, and some kind souls have set up tutorials, which you can find using Google. Wine doesn't work with all games, so your best bet is for you to start searching for which games you'd like to play and whether anyone has instructions to get it working on the Mac using Wine.

Note: At the time of this writing, The Wine Project does not support macOS 10.15 Catalina.

CrossOver Mac

CodeWeavers took some of the sting out of Wine by making a Wine-derived app called CrossOver Mac. CrossOver Mac is Wine with specialized Mac support. Like Wine, it's a Windows compatibility layer for the Mac that enables some games to run.

CodeWeavers has modified the source code to Wine, made some improvements to configuration to make it easier, and provided support for their product, so you shouldn't be out in the cold if you have trouble getting things to run.

My experience with CrossOver — like Wine — is somewhat hit or miss. Its list of actual supported games is pretty small. Many other unsupported games do, in fact work — the CrossOver community has many notes about what to do or how to get them to work, which are referenced by the installation program. Still, if you're more comfortable with an app that's supported by a company, CrossOver may be worth a try. What's more, a free trial is available for download, so you won't be on the hook to pay anything to give it a shot.

Boxer

If you're an old-school gamer and have a hankering to play DOS-based PC games on your Mac, you may have good luck with Boxer. Boxer is a straight-up emulator designed especially for the Mac, which makes it possible to run DOS games without having to do any configuring, installing extra software, or messing around in the Mac Terminal app.

With Boxer, you can drag and drop CD-ROMs (or disk images) from the DOS games you'd like to play. It also wraps them into self-contained 'game boxes' to make them easy to play in the future and gives you a clean interface to find the games you have installed.

Boxer is built using DOSBox, a DOS emulation project that gets a lot of use over at GOG.com, a commercial game download service that houses hundreds of older PC games that work with the Mac. So if you've ever downloaded a GOG.com game that works using DOSBox, you'll have a basic idea of what to expect.

Some final thoughts

In the end, programs like the ones listed above aren't the most reliable way to play Windows games on your Mac, but they do give you an option.

Of course, another option is to run Windows on your Mac, via BootCamp or a virtual machine, which takes a little know-how and a lot of memory space on your Mac's hard drive.

How do you play your Windows games on Mac?

Let us know in the comment below!

Making Windows Apps In C On Mac

Updated October 2019: Updated with the best options.

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This article provides the info you need to get started building desktop apps for Windows or updating existing desktop apps to adopt the latest experiences in Windows 10.

Platforms for desktop apps

There are four main platforms for building desktop apps for Windows PCs. Each platform provides an app model that defines the lifecycle of the app, a complete UI framework and set of UI controls that let you create desktop apps like Word, Excel, and Photoshop, and access to a comprehensive set of managed or native APIs for using Windows features. For an in-depth comparison of these platforms along with additional resources for each platform, see Choose your app platform.


PlatformDescriptionDocs and resources
Universal Windows Platform (UWP)

The leading-edge platform for Windows 10 apps and games. You can build UWP apps that exclusively use UWP controls and APIs, or you can use UWP controls and APIs in desktop apps that are built using one of the other platforms.

Get started
API reference
Samples
C++/Win32

The platform of choice for native Windows apps that require direct access to Windows and hardware.

Get started
API reference
Samples
WPF

The established .NET-based platform for graphically-rich managed Windows apps with a XAML UI model. These apps can target .NET Core 3 or the full .NET Framework.

Get started
API reference (.NET)
Samples
Windows Forms

A .NET-based platform that is designed for managed line-of-business apps with a lightweight UI model. These apps can target .NET Core 3 or the full .NET Framework.

Get started
API reference (.NET)

Note

On Windows 10, each these platforms also support using the Windows UI (WinUI) Library to create user interfaces. For more information about WinUI for desktop apps, see this section.

Update existing desktop apps for Windows 10

If you have an existing WPF, Windows Forms, or native Win32 desktop app, Windows 10 and the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) offer many features you can use to deliver a modern experience in your app. Most of these features are available as modular components that you can adopt in your app at your own pace without having to rewrite your app for a different platform.

Here are just a few of the features available to enhance your existing desktop apps:

  • Use MSIX to package and deploy your desktop apps. MSIX is a modern Windows app package format that provides a universal packaging experience for all Windows apps. MSIX brings together the best aspects of MSI, .appx, App-V and ClickOnce installation technologies and is built to be safe, secure, and reliable.
  • Integrate your desktop app with Windows 10 experiences by using package extensions. For example, point Start tiles to your app, make your app a share target, or send toast notifications from your app.
  • Use XAML Islands to host UWP XAML controls in your desktop app. Many of the latest Windows 10 UI features are only available to UWP XAML controls.

For more information, see these articles.


Making Windows Apps In C On Mac Free

ArticleDescription
Modernize desktop appsDescribes the latest Windows 10 and UWP development features you can use in any desktop app, including WPF, Windows Forms, and C++ Win32 apps.
Tutorial: Modernize a WPF appFollow step-by-step instructions to modernize an existing WPF line-of-business sample app by adding UWP Ink and calendar controls to the app and packaging it in an MSIX package.

Create new desktop apps

If you are creating a new desktop app for Windows, here are some resources to help get you started.


ArticleDescription
Choose your app platformProvides an in-depth comparison of the main desktop app platforms and can help you choose the right platform for your needs. This article also provides useful links to docs for each platform.
Visual Studio project templates for Windows appsDescribes the project and item templates that Visual Studio provides to help you build apps for Windows 10 devices by using C# or C++.
Modernize desktop appsDescribes the latest Windows 10 and UWP development features you can use in any desktop app, including WPF, Windows Forms, and C++ Win32 apps.
Features and technologiesProvides an overview of Windows features that are accessible via each of the main desktop app platforms and links to the related docs.

Related documentation and technologies

ResourceDescription
.NET Core 3.0Learn about the latest features of .NET Core 3.0, including enhancements for WPF and Windows Forms apps.
Desktop guide for WPF and .NET Core 3.0Develop WPF apps that target .NET Core 3.0 instead of the full .NET Framework.
AzureExtend the reach of your apps with Azure cloud services.
Visual StudioLearn how to use Visual Studio to develop apps and services.
MSIXPackage and deploy any Windows app in a modern and universal packaging format.
Windows AIUse Windows AI to build intelligent solutions for complex problems in your apps.
Windows ContainersPackage your applications with their dependencies in fast, fully isolated Windows environments.
Progressive Web AppsConvert your web apps into Progressive Web Apps that can be distributed and run as UWP apps on Windows 10.
XamarinBuild cross-platform apps for Windows, Android, iOS, and macOS using .NET code and platform-specific user interfaces.
Docs archive for Windows 8.x and earlierAccess archived documentation about building apps for Windows 8.x and earlier versions.