I have a WinUI3 (1.0.1) C# app which builds and runs with no problems under Visual Studio 2022. I can also deploy it (sideload) via MSIX and run it on my development machine with no problem.

However, deploying the signed MSIX to a test Windows 10 or Windows 11 machine -- neither of which have VS installed -- results in a silent crash. The app launches and almost immediately shuts down.

I've run it under WinDbg (preview) and there's an unrecoverable exception encountered:

ModLoad: 00007ffa`ba1d0000 00007ffa`ba1f0000   C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\24075JumpForJoySoftware.49446A8871E87_1.0.0.0_x64__4ene0yq67pf8g\System.Text.Encodings.Web.dll
onecoreuap\windows\frameworkudk\dxprivatescommon.cpp(53)\Microsoft.Internal.FrameworkUdk.dll!00007FFAA0E398A5: (caller: 00007FFAA0E7966D) ReturnHr(3) tid(b24) 80004002 No such interface supported
ModLoad: 00007ffa`c5260000 00007ffa`c5289000   C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\Cabinet.dll
(2f08.17a8): CLR exception - code e0434352 (first chance)
(2f08.26bc): CLR exception - code e0434352 (first chance)
(2f08.26bc): Windows Runtime Originate Error - code 40080201 (first chance)
onecore\com\combase\winrt\error\restrictederror.cpp(1016)\combase.dll!00007FFAD924BEE3: (caller: 00007FFAD9255BC9) ReturnHr(1) tid(26bc) 8007007E The specified module could not be found.
onecore\com\combase\winrt\error\restrictederror.cpp(1016)\combase.dll!00007FFAD924BEE3: (caller: 00007FFAD93CCC47) ReturnHr(2) tid(26bc) 8007007E The specified module could not be found.
onecore\com\combase\winrt\error\restrictederror.cpp(1016)\combase.dll!00007FFAD924BEE3: (caller: 00007FFAD93CC6B3) ReturnHr(3) tid(26bc) 8007007E The specified module could not be found.
(2f08.17a8): CLR exception - code e0434352 (first chance)
(2f08.17a8): CLR exception - code e0434352 (first chance)
(2f08.17a8): CLR exception - code e0434352 (first chance)
(2f08.17a8): CLR exception - code e0434352 (first chance)
(2f08.26bc): Unknown exception - code c000027b (!!! second chance !!!)
KERNELBASE!RaiseFailFastException+0x152:
00007ffa`d798b362 0f1f440000      nop     dword ptr [rax+rax]

It's unclear to me how to resolve this, or even to further research what's going wrong.

As an experiment I built, signed and deployed a test WinUI3 app which is nothing more than what VS2022 builds from templates when you create a packaged WinUI3 app. It runs find after being deployed via a signed MSIX file.

The only thing I noticed when I ran the test app under WinDbg (preview) is that it loads combase.dll successfully (i.e., combase.dll doesn't show up in any error message). But I don't know if this means anything.

Advice on next steps (or even a solution :)) would be much appreciated.