Previously, I wrote about porting my Surface Craps application from Surface v1 to v2.  Now that the app has been upgraded, here’s a short post on how to update the installer to work with v2.

There is not much different about the makeup of an application that is registered on the Surface between v1 and v2.  Your program binaries go in a directory, and then (new to v2) a SHORTCUT points the Surface shell to that directory.

Program Files

Unlike v1 that required you to install your program files in a specific “Program Data” sub directory, now you can install your program files to a directory of your choice – usually %ProgramFiles(x86)%.

Program Data Shortcut

Next, make your installer create a SHORTCUT to the directory where you install your program files, and place the shortcut in the Surface v2 directory:  C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Surface\v2.0\Programs.

It’s important that this shortcut is to the DIRECTORY where your program files are, not a shortcut directly to the application .xml file.

Here’s how the Surface programs directory and shortcut properties should look.

That’s it – you should now see your application in the chooser when you run the shell.