Grant package identity by packaging with external ___location

Many Windows features can be used by a desktop app only if that app has package identity at runtime. See Features that require package identity. If you have an existing desktop app, with its own installer, then there's very little you need to change in order to benefit from package identity.

Starting in Windows 10, version 2004, you can grant package identity to an app simply by building and registering a package with external ___location with your app. Packaging with external ___location allows you to register a simple identity package in your existing installer without changing how or where you install your application. You might be familiar with full MSIX packaging; this is a much lighter-weight option.

You can add an identity package to an existing Visual Studio project with the Windows Application Packaging Project and Package with External Location extension. This approach is recommended when there is a single application project that needs identity. The tooling provides a visual manifest editor, visual Resource Designer for localization, graphical wizard for creating and trusting self-signed certificates, automatic updating of application manifests, and PowerShell scripts to register and unregister the identity package for local testing.

If you don't build with Visual Studio or want to bundle multiple application executables under a shared identity, you can build an identity package manually.