Get Window 8 Start Screen tiles - c#

I would like to get a listing of all the tiles on the Win8 Start screen. I do not need them to live update just get the appropriate tiles/icons.
What is the way to get all the tiles found on the Windows 8 Start Screen?
Clarification:
What I am looking for is images of the tiles pinned to the start screen (not just my application's). I would like to provide those images to the user in a different way.
In Windows 7 I would just gather everything from the start menu folder and then gather their icons.
I recognize that I cannot create a Windows Store app to do this. I was planning on this being a desktop app.

The Windows Store Apps (aka Metro apps) are installed in "C:\Program Files\WindowsApps"
Your app idea is impossible as WinRT app because WinRT app has sandbox nature, so you can't access that path. If you want to develop desktop app then it's possible.
In that folder, you will find separate folder for each app. Look for "Assets" or "images" folder. It contains all the logo (Wide, Store, Small, SplashScreen, etc) of particular app. The folder name may differ for any app, "Assets" & "images" is default folders.
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Window Store Apps (Windows 10) How to get current desktop wallpaper image?

I am trying set my app background images, same as Windows 10 background image.
How could I get the current wallpaper image in my app ?
I found UserProfilePersonalizationSettings API, which can set the wallpaper but I am trying to get access to the current wallpaper.
Unfortunately you cannot access the current wallpaper, only set it. If your app sets the wallpaper, you could store it separately to know which one you saved the last time.
If your app requests the Broad filesystem access restricted capability, you could alternatively take a peek in the C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes\CachedFiles folder to find the currently set wallpaper image, but declaring this capability is recommended only in case the app has good reason to do so.

Get windows 10 default like icons

I'm currently building a wpf application and am looking for a "generic" looking set of icons like they are used in windows explorer, they can be something between xp and 10 style as long as I have a consistent set of icons in .png format for functions like: new file, open, save, save as, send to, undo, redo, ...
Is there a way to use the windows internal once?
Or a way to get some from the internet?
I tried the VS2015 Image Library but the icons there have different resolutions and colors. I couldn't even find a pair for undo/redo with the same resolution/color.
Here's the list of dlls that you can get icons from on any windows OS:
%systemroot%\system32\imageres.dll - contains lots of icons, used almost everywhere in Windows 10. It has icons for different types of folders, hardware devices, actions, and so on.
%systemroot%\system32\shell32.dll - also has lots of icons used in various parts of Windows 10. Together with imageres.dll , shell32.dll hosts one of the largest icon collections in Windows 10.
To get the complete list of dlls check out this article.

How to create Icons for a Desktop Application in Windows 10

I have an application which has been used in Win7. I am now moving to Win10. It is a standard application and not a universal one.
My application icon look ugly in the Windows 10 app menu and in the start menu (mainly because it is not a flat icon with transparent background). Can someone point me to a guide on what kind of icons .ico/.png files I am suppose to make for my application in a Windows 10 environment.
I imagine I could make a flat white icon with a transparent background but what happens when themes change or the file is viewed in a white background?

Minimize Windows 8 Store App while tracking location with GPS

I'm working on a metro app and am having trouble finding how not to show the application.
We recently deployed tablets to our field reps, and need to add gps tracking. GPS is much easier to deal with in the metro libs (it's like 4 lines of code vs. unmanaged) so we're hoping to be able to push a metro app instead of spending time coding a winforms/wpf desktop app (the tablets are full version windows, so it's an option if we can't hide a metro app. I feel like it should be possible though as the start screen tiles update automatically without opening the main program).
In WPF, it's fairly simple to make a window invisible. I'm creating the metro app in wpf, but it uses different libs than desktop and I may just not know how to do it.
In desktop programs, it's fairly simple. You do something along the lines of:
<Page
x:Class = xxxxxxxx
..
Visibility="Hidden">
Unfortunately, with metro, the only options I have are collapsed and visible. Collapsed doesn't seem to have any effect, unless it's just because it's not deployed and visual studio shows it anyway...
So basically I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to start the program minimized or hidden so that it doesn't interrupt the field reps every time it takes their location.
If you really want to make a metro app and want it to run "minimised" you will need to look at background task. To start the background task the user would still need to start the app at least once, futhermore background task have limitation how how often and how long they can run. Also there is a lot of constraint on deploying a windows store app if you cannot publish it in the store.
If your goal is to just have access to GPS through C# apis, the GPS is actually one of the winRT api you can use from the desktop, you can find a tutorial on how to access winRT api from the desktop here
Here is the complete list of winRT api accessible from the desktop (You can find Geoposition class among them).
Have you looked into creating a background task that transmits GPS? The background task can run without the app running.
I am not entirely certain you can voluntarily minimize a Windows Store App on a user's behalf. I see nothing in IntelliSense about it, nor have I found anything online or see any app do it.
However, be aware that deploying the app without using the Windows Store -- sideloading -- requires Windows 8 Enterprise edition computers joined to the domain OR Windows 8 Pro with a sideloading key ($30 per key, purchased in packs of at least 100.) Perhaps a WPF app with unmanaged code is worth the money and effort.

windows system tray application like the volume application

I would like to create a application very similar to the windows 7 volume bar which is located in the system tray. I'm new to windows development and would like a point in the right direction.
Should i just make a normal application and just put in the system tray?
I don't need a main window for the application, it has to accessible only via system-tray (i need only the volume bar, nothing else)... how can i do this?
Would it be better to write it in C++ instead of C#?
How can i detect the "volume" of the sound that is outputted by windows (even if the system sound is muted)?
Thanks for your reply's.
You can by using the class NotifyIcon. Just google for it to find samples. Here is one.

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