Activate Windows 8 Applications

This is a simple Node.js library and/or command-line tool that activates a Windows 8 application. It takes as its sole parameter an “application user model ID,” which is a somewhat-cryptic string that identifies apps throughout Windows 8.

You can use it from JavaScript like so:

var activate = require("winningjs-activator");

activate("Microsoft.BingWeather_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App", function (err) {
    // If `err` doesn't exist, your app is activated and showing on the user's screen!
    // Otherwise it contains an informative error message with an HRESULT.
});

or if you install it globally, you can use it from the command line:

C:\> WinningJS-activator Microsoft.BingWeather_8wekyb3d8bbwe!App

For more information on how this is accomplished, check out this MSDN article.

Installation

Although you can compile the source directly by navigating to the src/ directory, I've made it easy to install this tool through npm, the Node.js package manager. You'll need to have Visual Studio 2012 installed (the free edition works fine), but if you do, then just type

C:\> npm install winningjs-activator

and it will download the source and compile it into something ready for you to use. As mentioned above, if you want it as a general command-line tool, just add the -g flag and it will be placed in your PATH.