I understand that because of the PNG Start screen icon requirements that I need to sign my CAB file as privileged’, doesn’t this extend the approval time for my application?
Yes. Requesting that your app be signed privileged does increase the approval time for your application. This is because you are likely accessing protected APIs and / or registry keys. The Marketplace team needs to vet the reasons for your access to these protected areas. However, within the scope of the PNG Start screen icons, you only need to sign privileged if 1) you are using a single CAB to distribute your app to both Professional and Standard devices and 2) you are using CAB file declarations (not code in a setup dll) to configure the PNG StartInfo registry key. In other words, you can avoid having to sign privileged if you create the PNG StartInfo registry key programmatically using a setup dll and only do this if installing on a Professional device. The blog post has more details.
