“Your package is not digitally signed”.. “The certificate is not installed on your machine”.. “A new package is already installed..”

Many applications keep settings or configurations in files that later get stored in per-user based locations, such as %appdata% or %localappdata% folders.

We all know that MSIX is an evolving technology - but it is not a fix-all for all the situations we encounter when running Windows applications.

Advanced Installer 18.1 is another step forward towards more automation, and less manual packaging.

In this article, we will explore what happens during a Windows Installer registration and what are the repercussions that appear if you don't register your MSI during installation.

Applications often require different types of permissions to operate smoothly - so adding permissions to files, folders, and registry keys is a standard practice in MSI.

Did you package Notepad++ as an MSIX, and need to add extra plugins to it?

For over 15 years, we've been releasing a new version of Advanced Installer each month. Our February release brings you more than 30 enhancements and bug fixes.

With the experience of unfortunate security breaches in recent years, the focus of making safe and reliable applications has increased in the software industry. This is why adding a digital signature to your application has become a must -- and for MSIX applications it is mandatory.

Microsoft Visual Studio is the most popular integrated development environment (IDE) among Windows developers. It supports a large variety of programming languages including C, C++, C#, F#, Visual Basic .Net, JavaScript, among others.

On December 2nd of 2020, MSIX Packaging Fundamentals book authors Tim Mangan, Bogdan Mitrache, and Kevin Kaminski answered a series of questions within the MSIX Packaging Fundamentals Q&A live webinar.

As we've emphasized before, we're big fans of MSIX technology here at Advanced Installer. It has brought more control to developers when it comes to their packages -- as it includes options for repackaging, rolling back updates and even downgrade scenarios.

Whether you create your .msixupload package manually or by using Visual Studio, there are cases when you need to perform quick edits on your file before uploading it to the Microsoft Store.

In my experience, CustomActions can be difficult to add and set up, especially in MSI, often requiring reviewing lengthy documentation or dealing with unexpected failures or bugs. If you started your career prior to the App-V and MSIX era, you have probably come across various applications installers that required reverse engineering work.

In this article, you will learn how to configure and build an Advanced Installer Visual Studio Project(AIPROJ) from an Azure DevOps pipeline.

As software packagers, we know the struggle that comes with new technologies. And there's no need to sugarcoat it -- is downright stressful.

In a previous article we had a look on how Environment Variables work with MSIX. We now know that in MSIX, Environment Variables are redefined as AppExecutionAlias.

Ever since we worked together with Microsoft to launch the MSIX we commited to bring you the most powerful MSIX packaging solution available on the market. We are aware that application compatibility issues together with the MSIX limitations complicate your modernization and this release bring majors improvements to smoothen your MSIX adoption.

Up until 2020, Windows Services were not supported in MSIX -- which represented a blocker for organizations looking to transition their applications (that used Windows Services) to MSIX technology.

TL;DR: Let's put it bluntly, you should never set a CustomAction to “Immediate” when you intend to change the system state.