The application packaging, deployment, and virtualization landscape is constantly evolving.

When deploying applications, the architecture and packaging format you choose play an important role regarding compatibility, performance, and user reach.

When you switch from using App-V to MSIX for packaging your applications, you'll notice a big change in how shortcuts work. MSIX doesn't use the old .lnk shortcuts StartMenu you might be used to. Instead, it uses something called “modern application entries.”

In our previous article, we simplified the steps of App-V 5 to MSIX conversion using MSIX Packaging Tool and Advanced Installer. We went even further and saw How to Automate the App-V to MSIX conversion.

In our latest article, we discussed App-V to MSIX conversion: Shortcut argument skipped during conversion. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The same goes for WorkingDirectory.

Automatically converting your App-V application to MSIX spares you from rebuilding them from the ground up.

IT professionals are now considering switching from App-V to MSIX technology more than ever, since main-stream support for App-V ended a few years back and extended support is due to end in a few years (April 14, 2026). However, as it happens with change, this shift comes with many challenges when converting App-V packages to MSIX.

Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) is a fully developed technology that enterprises use to deliver Win32 applications as virtual applications.

Software packaging is the process of building an installer that includes all your applications' resources and can be used to distribute them on the end-user devices.

Scripts have been traditionally used by ISVs to add Custom Actions to their applications and make changes to the environment. They have been present in MSI and App-V packaging formats for ages, while for MSIX, they were introduced and supported about a year after Microsoft announced the MSIX release.

Just think about how many times you needed to debug your applications.And every single time you repeat the long commands in PowerShell , you wish it was a better alternative out there. Well, we felt that pain too. So, as software development is in our blood, we developed a tool to solve forever this pain.

Let’s assume that you have an application that installs files or registry in a user location. In this article we explain how you can install that information for all users by using MSI, APP-V or the new Microsoft installer technology, MSIX, a short cleanup process description, and a short comparison between them.