All about XAP Files

The XAP file type is primarily associated with Silverlight.

XAP	File extension: XAP
	File type:	application package

What is a XAP file?

XAP files mostly belong to Silverlight by Microsoft. A XAP file is a project created by the XACT audio programming library bundled with DirectX SDK. A XAP project contains configuration and references to wave banks and sound banks. It is primarily used to create audio content for Windows desktop and Xbox consoles. Xbox uses a different type of XAP file to store its dashboard script. Another type of XAP file is an application package built using Visual Studio integrated development environment and deployed to Windows 7/8 mobile phones. Silverlight browser extension could also run a XAP file containing a rich web application package.

How to open a XAP file

You need a suitable software like Silverlight to open a XAP file. Without proper software you will receive a Windows message "How do you want to open this file?" or "Windows cannot open this file" or a similar Mac/iPhone/Android alert. If you cannot open your XAP file correctly, try to right-click or long-press the file. Then click "Open with" and choose an application. You can also display a XAP file directly in the browser:. Just drag the file onto this browser window and drop it.

Online XAP Text Viewer

Choose your .xap file to analyze

or drag and drop it here

Online File Viewer

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XAP file format:

Every file has a defined file format, i.e. how the data is arranged in the file. The initial characters of a file are called signature, sometimes also referred to as "magic bytes". The signature can be used to infer the file format. However, different programs can use the same file extension, and file extensions can be assigned incorrectly. If there are problems opening a file, you must first determine the file format used. Below is our analysis of the XAP files:

An XAP file predominantly uses a uniform format. The two most popular formats are as follows:

• 75% of all XAP files internally use the ZIP format, multiple files are compressed and combined into one XAP file. Most often they are 3 to 110 compressed files. File names inside are AppManifest.xaml. Tip: If you rename the file ending to .zip and then double-click it, you see the included files and images. The average file size is 1 MB with most files being between 65 KB and 13 MB in size. The keywords AppManifest.xaml are typical for these files. These files are often associated with silverlight, client, player, monitor, application, activity, ascribe, viewer and media.
• 20% of all XAP files are Windows Phone encrypted Application files. These files contain neither text nor words, but only data. Most of these files are 2 MB to 45 MB in size. Several words can almost always be found in the files, e.g. <WRMHEADER xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/DRM/2007/03/PlayReadyHeader" version=. Such files sometimes refer to appx, beta, download, clans and clash.

All other XAP files (5%) have no uniform format, often e.g. XACT Project. They are often associated with portal, presentation, streaming, explorer, plupload, manager, release, helper, silver, excel or plus. Just click the "Choose your .xap file to analyze" button on this page to find out what your XAP file is.