Will a game made with .Net Desktop Development, be able to run on Windows' desktops?

Question

I am new to making games (I have experience only with pygame), and I want to start creating with C#. I've found out that Monogame is a very good engine. On my way of setting up, in the part where I install Visual Studio, Monogame's site says:

Before installing Monogame, you'll need to install Visual Studio 2019 or later (any edition, including Community) with the following components, depending on your target platform:

• .NET Core cross-platform development - For Desktop OpenGL and DirectX platforms
• Mobile Development with .NET - For Android and iOS platforms
• Universal Windows Platform development - For Windows 10 and Xbox UWP platforms
• .Net Desktop Development - For Desktop OpenGL and DirectX platforms to target normal .NET Framework

I want to create a game to be played on desktops (most preferably, on Windows), and as it writes, Universal Windows seems the most suitable. Is there any difference, if I use .NET Desktop Development? I see that for other type of applications, this is very common.

Answer 1

You can view the list of platforms Monogame can export to here.

As you can see, the framework supports various templates which result in a game which runs on various target platforms. Those including Windows are:

• WindowsDX which runs on any Windows version since Vista
• DesktopGL, which runs on any Windows version since Vista, macOS and Linux (you need to compile a separate binary for each)
• WindowsUniversal which runs on Windows 10 and XBox One (and I believe later XBoxes), and requires that you distribute your game through the Windows Store.