We have become aware of an issue affecting some developers after they have updated to Windows 8.1, leading most to think their game has failed to build when instead it is that their games will now not install at the end of a build process because a required framework package isn't found. Developers receive the following exception during the install procedure (quite a way down your compiler window log):
Add-AppxPackage : Deployment failed with HRESULT: 0x80073CF3, Package failed
updates, dependency or conflict validation.
Windows cannot install package Demo1-native-gmx because this package depends
on another package that could not be found. This package requires minimum
version 11.0.50712.1 of framework Microsoft.VCLibs.110.00 published by any
publisher to install. Provide the framework along with this package.
NOTE: For additional information, look for [ActivityId]
7d2e1c8c-cedc-0000-872f-2e7ddccece01 in the Event Log or use the command line
Get-AppxLog -ActivityID 7d2e1c8c-cedc-0000-872f-2e7ddccece01
This is because you have removed (or never installed) Visual Studio 2012 and are now using VS2013 instead. 2013 has no support for maintaining Windows 8.0 apps unless you also have the libs from 2012 on your system. Express editions of Visual Studio 2013 won't highlight this issue/reason, but if you install Pro/Ultimate you will be presented with the option to install VS2012's libs as part of your 2013 installation.
You are required to still have VS2012's libs for doing Windows 8 N apps. For the immediate future at least we will be remaining with 8.0 apps on Native, as MS and Visual Studio want all N apps to be 8.1 now and these won't work on Windows 8.0, and, as mentioned already, the majority of people affected by this issue use the free Express editions of VS, so we can't make a clean break to VS2013 right now.
Windows 8 JS and Windows YYC support VS2013 on its own as of 1.2.1204+ (coming soon).
NOTE: Even if you already have Visual Studio 2012 installed and the Microsoft.VCLibs exist in Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v8.0\ExtensionSDKs\Microsoft.VCLibs\11.0 you may still encounter this error. If that is the case then you need to do the following:
- open VS2012
- go to File / New / Project
- select Templates/Visual C++/Windows Store/Blank App
- Choose OK
- Change the Solution Configuration from Debug to Release
- Hit F7 to build the solution
- Go to Build / Deploy Solution
This should install the correct frameworks and remove the error for good.