According to the company, this update promises a significant performance improvement: previous tests have seen a 50% reduction in application launch time and an eight-fold reduction in the size of installation packages, according to the latest Windows report.

The Windows App SDK, which allows developers to build modern Windows applications using both Win32 APIs and Universal Windows Platform (UWP) frameworks, has experienced performance issues in the past.

• For example, apps like Phone Link that connect Android or iPhone devices to Windows 11 suffer from slow startup issues, especially after a system restart.
• Besides the slow startup, some users have also noted that these apps sometimes stop responding to requests due to high memory usage by the Microsoft Edge browser.

Despite these issues, Microsoft is working on solutions to optimize the performance of applications. With the arrival of Native AOT support on September 6, developers can integrate this technology into their applications, resulting in faster launches and less memory consumption.

The initial results are promising: Tests have shown a significant increase in speed and a reduction in the size of application installation packages. Using the hard-coded Edge WebView2 SDK over a NuGet-based solution also helps keep package sizes small.

How will it affect users?

While these improvements won’t mean an immediate change for all users, Microsoft is optimistic about the performance improvements as developers will need to update their apps to take advantage of Native AOT. After applying the update, users can expect smoother and faster apps with less memory consumption.