Currently Windows backends in Qt which are based on WinRT APIs (not Win32) use raw COM pointer functionality. This approach has several drawbacks such as:

• Unreadable code and thus high maintenance effort
• Inconsistent error handling across modules/backends
• Inconsistent use of best practices and thus bugs

By switching over to c++/winrt for these backends most of these issues could be fixed.

Open questions are:

• Which backends need to be ported?
• What's the effort estimate for the port?
• What's the level of support for c++/winrt in other Windows toolchains?
• Are there toolchains that do support WinRT APIs but do not support c++/winrt? Thus: Would we lose functionality?