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.

In this article we are going to talk about the application repackaging process and more specifically: what is a Repackager, what can you do with it, how can it help you in your daily job - either as an IT Pro or as a Developer - and what makes Advanced Installer Repackager irreplaceable when supporting your updating and adding customizations to your installer package.

Working with Azure DevOps pipelines can be a tedious task, especially if you have to perform updates on complex pipelines or make the necessary configurations to each of them in a short amount of time.

Mitigate the security doubts and provide trust and warranty to users by adding an extra step to your application packaging process with Digital Signing.

In 2018, Microsoft delivered a breakthrough packaging technology to enable a flawless application packaging process, including enhanced features to help IT Pros and Developers carry out updates and customizations in a more reliable way.

Ever wonder how an MSI registration ProductID is created?When installing an MSI, it registers on the system with a "strange" ProductID (different from regular ProductIDs) which is sometimes tricky to find. This is particularly challenging when you're trying to locate the package installer by its ProductID.

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.

Nowadays CI/CD(Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery) pipeline became a best practice for developers and DevOps helping them to manage the software process in a much easier and automated way.

There are numerous cloud services available for software developers, and some of them can be almost forgotten until we need them. And when we need them, they turn out to be invaluable.

A firewall is a network security system that can be found on any modern operating system. It's purpose is to act as a barrier against network-based intrusions, to monitor and control incoming and outgoing traffic following an organization's predetermined security rules.

We’ve included a lot of new features in Advanced Installer this year. You now have a complete set of solutions for MSIX packaging, native integrations for Azure digital signing, repackager templates, and many more.