Windows support of a pluggable ecosystem for universal windows application stores

A method and apparatus comprises identifying, by an application platform operating on a device, one or more application stores and one or more applications operating on the device, the one or more application stores being configured as a respective source for each application operating on the device, determining one or more application store privileges for each of the one or more application stores operating on the device, each application store privilege providing a respective application store with management capabilities over the one or more applications, and performing, for each application store, one or more operations specific to the application store based on the one or more application store privileges and one or more application program interfaces (APIs) specific to the application store.