Unable to Activate Windows Store App

Question

I installed a retail version of Windows 8 Pro. I downloaded and installed Visual Studio Express 2012. I asked for and received a developers certificate. Then I tried to create a hello world app.

From there I get a "Unable to Activate Windows Store App" message box when I try to debug the app. Most commentary on the web says delete build directories. This didn't work for me

Does anyone have a solution for how to fix this and debug my app?

Answer 1

NuGet will try to add an app.config with binding redirects to Windows Store apps if it thinks it is needed. However, Windows Store apps don’t need app.config, and will actually fail to start with a very confusing error message if it is present.

Solution:

Remove the App.config

and build again

Answer 2

this can happen when the application signing key (.pfx file) is missing.

Try the following:

• Open the Package.appxmanifest file in Visual Studio
• Go to the register "Packaging"
• Select [Choose Certificate…]
  • Select the test certificate using [Configure Certificate…] [From File…], or create a new one using [Configure Certificate…] [Test Certificate…]
  • When using a test certificate, ensure that it is in the .gitignore file. There should be an entry like !**\*_TemporaryKey.pfx to include the key in Git.
    • Note: The certificate for release build should only be available to the build server and not included in Git.
• Rebuild the project

Answer 3

This sort of problems are common with Windows 8 Visual Studio. Such errors encounters when your developer license of Visual Studio has expired so you may want to renew or get a new developer license here's how you get that. How to get a developer license in Windows 8

And similar problem may also encounter with E_Fail issues here's how to solve Unable to activate Windows Store app E_Fail Issue

Answer 4

This has happened to me in the past and I have always found that deleting the build directories resolves it.

However this time this is not working for me. I have tried - Rebooting - Deleting build directories - Running Build | Clean Solution in VS - Renewing Developer Account

The only thing that will work for me is changing my Package name under the Package.appxmanifest

However I am not overly happy with this as a solution. I will keep investigating.

Answer 5

For those who get a similar error but who are searching for a solution while debugging an IOT background app on a local machine specifically - you can find it here.

Using the search term "unable to activate windows store app the activation request failed with error" brought me here.

Answer 6

The issue might be caused because NuGet will try to add an app.config with binding redirects to Windows Store apps if it thinks it is needed. However, Windows Store apps don’t need app.config, and will actually fail to start with a very confusing error message if it is present.

And the solution in this case would be to Remove the App.config