Determine metro app is running in Windows 8 tab or Desktop PC

Question

I am developing app with windows 8 metro style. This app has some more feature if it running in desktop pc compared to Tablet. But my problem is how to detect app is running

Answer 1

Windows.Devices namespace has a wealth of information about device capabilities. For example to determine if the device is touch enabled, you can use:

var hasTouch = Windows.Devices.Input
                  .PointerDevice.GetPointerDevices()
                  .Any(p => p.PointerDeviceType == Windows.Devices.Input.PointerDeviceType.Touch);

Answer 2

My suggestion would be to call down to the GetSystemInfo API in the CoreDLL

Here is an example call:

    [DllImport("coredll")]
    static extern void GetSystemInfo(ref SYSTEM_INFO pSI); 

    public struct SYSTEM_INFO
    {
        public uint dwOemId;
        public uint dwPageSize;
        public uint lpMinimumApplicationAddress;
        public uint lpMaximumApplicationAddress;
        public uint dwActiveProcessorMask;
        public uint dwNumberOfProcessors;
        public uint dwProcessorType;
        public uint dwAllocationGranularity;
        public uint dwProcessorLevel;
        public uint dwProcessorRevision;
    }

If you fetch this information from the tablet, it should return a processor type of 2577 because it is running on ARM processors I believe. You might need to find the specific processor type you are targeting or pass in a list of targeted processor types.

Answer 3

@Mahantesh: If it's specifically between Desktop PC & Tablet (excluding laptop), then you can check the "battery properties" such as AC/Battery Supply, Battery remaining etc. which as far as I know are available only for computers running on battery power & certainly Desktop doesn't do that.

In simpler terms, the battery notification is not available for my Desktop PC whereas it's there for my laptop.