Metro apps

Windows Metro apps behave differently from normal Windows applications. The Nexthink solution abstracts those differences in order to provide a comprehensive view of the user activity.

Executions of metro apps

There are mainly two kinds of architectures for metro apps: compiled and JavaScript. Compiled applications (written in C#, VisualBasic or C++) behave similarly to normal Windows applications and have a .exe file associated with them. JavaScript applications are not compiled and there is no associated .exe file. Instead, the default windows executable hosts WWAHost.exe them. When analyzing the task manager of Windows devices, we usually see several executions of WWAHost, each one corresponding to a specific metro app.

Reporting only executions of WWAHost does not allow Nexthink users to distinguish between different metro apps. Instead, Nexthink Collector abstracts this information and reconstructs names and properties of the metro app being hosted by WWAHost by reporting this as a binary. The system uses similar techniques to abstract the corresponding executables and applications.

The system reports executions, connections, web requests, crashes, freezes, and other, routinely. The Nexthink solution makes it possible to distinguish between the web requests performed by the Weather app and the Food & Drink app. The description field of Metro executables is always set to Windows Metro Style App.

Metro packages

Metro apps are also different from a packaging perspective. You do not install them not like traditional applications and are not visible in Windows Programs and Features. As for binaries, Nexthink abstracts these differences: the system reports all metro apps as a Package and also reports the corresponding installations and uninstallations.