Windows ML: Fix warnings in cs-winui project

[adrastogi]

Description

There are some warnings-as-errors generated in the cs-winui project when building via the script, e.g., build.cmd x64 Release WindowsML (see below). Broadly speaking, they are related to publishing / deployment aspects of the project. This change resolves the warnings by conditioning the PublishProfile property (the sample is more oriented around local F5 on a developer device), and by enabling signing only if the developer has explicitly provided signing-related pieces. I re-built locally and verified that these no longer show up in the script output and further verified that the sample continues to function as expected.

"D:\source\WindowsAppSDK-Samples\samples\WindowsML\WindowsML-Samples.sln" (default target) (1) ->
"D:\source\WindowsAppSDK-Samples\samples\WindowsML\cs-winui\WindowsMLSample.csproj" (default target) (6) ->
(PrepareForPublish target) ->
C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\9.0.305\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\targets\Microsoft.NET.Publish.targets(217,5): error
NETSDK1198: A publish profile with the name 'win-x64.pubxml' was not found in the project. Set the PublishProfile
property to a valid file name. [D:\source\WindowsAppSDK-Samples\samples\WindowsML\cs-winui\WindowsMLSample.cspro
j]

"D:\source\WindowsAppSDK-Samples\samples\WindowsML\WindowsML-Samples.sln" (default target) (1) ->
"D:\source\WindowsAppSDK-Samples\samples\WindowsML\cs-winui\WindowsMLSample.csproj" (default target) (6) ->
(_ValidateSigningCertificate target) ->
D:\source\WindowsAppSDK-Samples\packages\microsoft.windows.sdk.buildtools.msix\1.7.20250829.1\build\Microsoft.W
indows.SDK.BuildTools.MSIX.Packaging.targets(783,5): error : SigningCertificateNoCertSpecified [D:\source\Windows
AppSDK-Samples\samples\WindowsML\cs-winui\WindowsMLSample.csproj]

Target Release

1.8.2

Checklist

Note that /azp run currently isn't working for this repo.

• Samples build and run using the Visual Studio versions listed in the Windows development docs.
• Samples build and run on all supported platforms (x64, x86, ARM64) and configurations (Debug, Release).
• Samples set the minimum supported OS version to Windows 10 version 1809.
• Samples build clean with no warnings or errors.
• [For new samples]: Samples have completed the sample guidelines checklist and follow standardization/naming guidelines.
• Microsoft employees only: you can validate your changes by following the instructions here: https://www.osgwiki.com/wiki/WindowsAppSDK-Samples

[mschofie]

But you're - essentially - disabling publishing. I imagine that this affects MSBuild.exe builds because - IIRC - they publish-on-build, but VS builds don't (since VS has an explicit 'Publish' entry point). So through VS, I would imagine that Publishing just doesn't work.

There's other samples that appear to have publishing working, could we try and follow their precedent? For example Samples\Input\cs-winui\Properties\PublishProfiles\win10-x64.pubxml exists as a publish profile - should we be doing what it's doing?

[adrastogi]

So through VS, I would imagine that Publishing just doesn't work.
Did you mean through msbuild?

Correct, this is intentionally disabling publishing for the reason I mentioned in the PR description (i.e., I wasn't thinking that a developer would want to actually try to publish these samples or use them as a starting point for that since the focus is on using WinML in a particular type of application). I gave this a try, though.

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In reply to: 3382233199

[adrastogi]

I don't quite follow what is supposed to be happening. I don't see actually see anything populated under the location below when I build through either VS or msbuild (the folder structure gets created, but no binaries there):
Samples\WindowsML\cs-winui\bin\Release\net8.0-windows10.0.22621.0\win-x64\publish

Publishing through the Visual Studio UX has things go to a different folder by default, which is Samples\WindowsML\cs-winui\bin\win-x64\publish:

Running dotnet publish /p:Configuration=Release /p:PublishProfile=win-x64 seems to put things under there.
Samples\WindowsML\cs-winui\bin\Release\net8.0-windows10.0.22621.0\win-x64\publish

But then since this is a packaged app, whatever is in that folder won't be runnable anyway as it's not a package. @mschofie, I am probably holding something wrong here?

[mschofie]

I wasn't thinking that a developer would want to actually try to publish these samples or use them as a starting point for that since the focus is on using WinML in a particular type of application.

For a dotnet build, publishing sounds like a great show-case/test, since we can trim and even AOT. It would be lovely if it worked.

I'm trying to buddy build at the minute, and am having problems, it looks like PublishProfile needs to be set correctly:

<PublishProfile>Properties\PublishProfiles\win-$(Platform).pubxml</PublishProfile>

But then, I'm not able to set the Platform, because the .sln doesn't allow x64.

[mschofie]

But then since this is a packaged app, whatever is in that folder won't be runnable anyway as it's not a package. @mschofie, I am probably holding something wrong here?

Sorry, I missed this comment. IIUC, publishing is more-then/orthogonal to packaging, it allows you to control whether you're .Net Framework dependent or not, whether you AOT or not. There's a bunch of options that would be lovely to showcase. The 'dotnet publish' documentation explains a bit more.

TBH, given that publishing is broken because the .sln file is AnyCPU-only, then perhaps your original fix is sufficient (which will address the build breaks), and we file a separate issue to get publishing working?

[adrastogi]

Filed #551 for tracking that, I'll update it as I get a better understanding of Publish. Let me know if you'd suggest any other changes to this PR.

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In reply to: 3382652726