General Capabilities

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General-use capabilities are specified by using Capability elements in your app package manifest. These capabilities apply to the most common app scenarios.

General Capabilities

Option

Description

3D Objects

The objects3D capability allows apps to have programmatic access to the 3D object files. This capability is typically used in 3D apps and games that need access to the entire 3D objects library.

AllJoyn

The allJoyn capability allows AllJoyn-enabled apps and devices on a network to discover and interact with each other.

Appointments

The appointments capability provides access to the user's appointment store. This capability allows read access to appointments obtained from the synced network accounts and to other apps that write to the appointment store. With this capability, your app can create new calendars and write appointments to calendars that it creates.

Background Media Playback

The Background Media Playback capability changes the behavior of the media-specific APIs to enable media playback while your app is in the background. All active audio streams will no longer mute, but will continue to be audible when an app transitions to the background. Additionally, app lifetime will be extended automatically while playback is occurring.

Read Blocked Messages

The blockedChatMessages capability allows apps to read SMS and MMS messages that have been blocked by the Spam Filter app.

Code generation

The Code Generation capability allows apps to access the functions which provide JIT capabilities to apps.

Contacts

The contacts capability provides access to the aggregated view of the contacts from various contacts stores. This capability gives the app limited access (network permitting rules apply) to contacts that were synced from various networks and the local contact store.

Internet and public networks

There are two capabilities that provide different levels of access to the Internet and public networks:

• The internetClient capability indicates that apps can receive incoming data from the Internet. Cannot act as a server. No local network access.
• The internetClientServer capability indicates that apps can receive incoming data from the Internet. Can act as a server. No local network access.

Homes and work networks

The privateNetworkClientServer capability provides inbound and outbound access to home and work networks through the firewall. This capability is typically used for games that communicate across the local area network (LAN), and for apps that share data across a variety of local devices. If your app specifies musicLibrary, picturesLibrary, or videosLibrary, you don't need to use this capability to access the corresponding library in a Home Group. On Windows, this capability does not provide access to the Internet.

Music Library

The musicLibrary capability provides programmatic access to the user's Music library, allowing the app to enumerate and access all files in the library without user interaction. This capability is typically used in jukebox apps that make use of the entire Music library.

Phone Calls

The Phone Call capability allows apps to access all of the phone lines on the device and perform the following functions

Phone Calls History Public

The Phone Calls history Public allows app to read cellular and some VoIP call history information on the device. This capabilities also allows the app to write VoIP call history entries.

Pictures library

The Pictures Library capability provides programmatic access to the user's Pictures library, allowing the app to enumerate and access all files in the library without user interaction. This capability is typically used in photo apps that make use of the entire Pictures library.

Remote System

The Remote System capability allows apps to have access to a list of devices associated with the user's account. Access to the device list is necessary to perform any operations that persist across devices.

Removable Storage

The Removable Storage capability provides programmatic access to files on removable storage, like USB keys and external hard drives, filtered to the file-type associations declared in the package manifest.

For example:

If a document-reader app declares a .doc file-type association, it can open .doc files on the removable storage device, but not other types of files.

Spatial Perception

The Spatial Perception capability provides programmatic access to spatial mapping data, giving mixed reality apps information about surfaces in application-specified regions of space near the user. Declare the spatial perception capability only when your app will explicitly use these surface meshes, as the capability is not required for mixed reality apps to perform holographic rendering based on the user's head pose.

User Account Information

The User Account Information capability gives apps the ability to access the user's name and picture.

Videos library

The Videos Library capability provides programmatic access to the user's Videos, allowing the app to enumerate and access all files in the library without user interaction. This capability is typically used in movie-playback apps that make use of the entire Videos library.

VoIP Calling

The voipCall capability allows apps to access the VoIP calling.