Publish Windows, AppStore Bundle (.msixupload) missing

[epsmae]

Description

Publishing a .Net Maui App to Windows store is quite a challenging task.
There is documentation but it seems like the visual studio maui integration is not yet completed as AppBundle can not be selected anymore in the wizzard compared to uwp (Publish UWP to Store).

The docs only mention sideloading:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/windows/deployment/publish-visual-studio-folder?view=net-maui-8.0

I tried also over the dotnet publish command but this has the same effect I was not able to get the .msixupload file.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/maui/windows/deployment/publish-unpackaged-cli?view=net-maui-8.0

There are many obstacles to publish the windows app independent of this issue:
#8304
#13869
#9547
#9879
microsoft/WindowsAppSDK#3337
#10564

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create a dotnet new maui project
2. Select Windows as Target
3. Right click Publish
4. Select MicrosoftStore as or Microsoft Store under new app if you have not yet selected
5. Select publish profile for Release x64
6. Select generate artifacts to validate...
7. Select create
8. Optional run test after successful publish
9. Observe in publish directory that the .msixupload is missing

Link to public reproduction project repository

No response

Version with bug

8.0.40 SR5

Is this a regression from previous behavior?

Yes, this used to work in Xamarin.Forms

Last version that worked well

Unknown/Other

Affected platforms

Windows

Affected platform versions

windows10.0.19041.0

Did you find any workaround?

There is one but I don't think it is acceptable:
#11446

Relevant log output

No response

[github-actions]

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[jaosnz-rep]

I tried on .NET MAUI App (8.0.40/8.0.21) and can repro this issue, after publish Windows to Microsoft Store, the bundle.upload file could not be generated. But on Xamarin.Forms it worked fine.

[baaaaif]

here's another related issue/workaround worth to mention: #12327

this works great in my case when using a single rid (win10-x64)
does not work in my case with win10-x64;win10-arm64

@mattleibow (tagging you because of your comment with workaround in [12327](#12327 (comment))
Now that the Copilot+ devices with ARM64 processors are about to be released, it would be great if there was a better way out of the box, without any workaround/hack

[baaaaif]

... my path got too long for win10-x64;win10-arm64 -.-
12327 contains a working solution :)