New Preview of WinUI 3, Native UI Platform of Windows, Fixes Stuff -- Visual Studio Magazine

New Preview of WinUI 3, Native UI Platform of Windows, Fixes Stuff

By David Ramel
07/17/2020

Microsoft shipped preview 2 of WinUI, the UI framework that uses Fluent Design to provide a native user experience (UX) framework for both Windows Desktop (Win32) and Universal Windows Platform (UWP) applications, focusing on stability and bug fixes.

While helping developers with modern controls and styles to create application UIs that feel natural across all Windows devices, "It provides a way to gradually migrate existing apps written in familiar technologies like MFC, WinForms, and WPF, allowing you to move these applications forward at your own pace," the WinUI site states. "It also supports familiar languages spanning C++, C#, Visual Basic, and even Javascript via React Native for Windows."

In March, Microsoft launched a new web site for the project, when WinUI was offered in beta.

With a scheduled delivery time-frame of "2020," the goals sought in WinUI 3.0 include:

full UI stack now decoupled from the OS
removing barriers between UWP and Win32 (desktop): works with both
support .NET 5 and C++
backward-compatible on Windows 10

However, preview 2, announced July 15, doesn't do much to advance those goals.

Rather, "WinUI 3 Preview 2 was a quality and stability-driven release," Microsoft said. "It builds directly on Preview 1 by fixing quite a few critical and serious bugs that didn’t make the cut in time for our release at Build 2020 two months ago. The team wanted to put together a small release post-Build to make sure that WinUI 3 is stable and easy to use for everyone."

However, it's still not ready for use by everyone in production apps.

Microsoft said some notable additions and fixes in this release include:

INotifyCollectionChangedand INotifyPropertyChanged are now working in C# Desktop apps
WinUI 3 Preview 2 is now compatible with .NET 5 Preview 5 for Desktop apps
Point, Rect, and Size members are now Double-typed in the C# projection of the APIs for Desktop apps
Crash fixes for Input Validation and other text scenarios

More information is provided in the release notes.

About the Author

David Ramel is an editor and writer at Converge 360.

Printable Format

comments powered by Disqus

Featured

Using Local AI to Cut Copilot Usage-Based Billing Shock

After being gobsmacked by the new billing plan using almost all my monthly credits in one or two days, I tried pushing some Copilot-style coding work onto local models in VS Code. What I found was less "free AI" and more "pick your pain": cloud charges on one side, heavy local resource use and long waits on the other.
.NET 11 Preview 5 Focuses on Performance, Productivity and Safer Code

.NET 11 Preview 5 focuses on under-the-hood runtime performance gains, streamlined APIs and language features that reduce boilerplate, plus built‑in security checks and incremental ASP.NET Core and EF Core improvements aimed at everyday developer productivity.
VS Code 1.124 Focuses on Agent Autonomy and Parallel Sessions

Microsoft's June 2026 VS Code update turns on Autopilot by default and adds background sending for agent sessions.
Developing Agentic Systems in .NET: From Concept to Code

ZioNet founder Alon Fliess previews his Visual Studio Live! San Diego session on building true agentic systems in .NET -- covering the cognitive loop, MCP tool integration, multi-agent orchestration and enterprise hosting and governance with the Microsoft Agent Framework.