What’s New in Advanced Installer 24.0

Meet Advanced Installer's integrated Assistant

Start by opening the Assistant from the View toolbar and keep it in the right-side pane while you work.

The Assistant understands the project type and the tools available for the current project.

It explains where a setting lives and guides you step by step. It can also perform supported project changes.

Before it changes anything, the Assistant shows a plain-language summary and asks for your approval.

In our tests, we asked it to:

• change the package name and product version;
• create an HKLM registry key and add a DWORD value;
• import a group of files from a local folder;
• explain how to install an existing executable as a Windows service;

Use the Locate button to jump to the project areas changed through the Assistant.

When you forget which page controls a setting, you don’t have to stop the project and search through documentation or forum posts. Ask directly from inside Advanced Installer and continue from the same place.

Note: Like any AI, the Assistant can still make mistakes. Make sure you review critical settings before you build and ship, just as you would review a script or change made by another tool.

Find step-by-step feature explanations and demos in the “Advanced Installer gets its own integrated AI Assistant!” article written by Alex Marin.

Check out here Alex Marin’s demo of the AI Assistant:

Move from build to deployment with OPM and PacKit

Besides the installer, deployment teams also need install commands, detection rules, requirements, assignments, and other settings. This data often live in separate documents or need to be rebuilt when the application moves to another team or management platform.

Open Package Manifest (OPM) keeps that deployment information in an open XML format beside the installer. PacKit stores the file so the package and the information needed at deployment can move together. You are welcome share this information with any customer or colleague that needs to silently deploy your application.

Advanced Installer 24.0 adds a direct hand-off to PacKit.

When the installer is ready, open Package Definition > Deployment and select Launch PacKit. Add the new installer, enter the deployment details in the PacKit interface, and PacKit creates the folder and the OPM file.

Advanced Installer Architect users receive one year of PacKit Plus at no extra cost. Contact the support team to obtain the license.

Radu Popescu prepared a step-by-step guide, “Open Package Manifest directly from Advanced Installer," and a live demo:

Add WinGet packages as prerequisites

Advanced Installer already developed a large library of predefined prerequisites for common scenarios like runtimes, frameworks, and Microsoft components.

The 24.0 version adds the WinGet repository.

From Requirements > Prerequisites, select New WinGet Package and search for the application you need.

When you add it, Advanced Installer pulls the available install command lines from the WinGet repository. You can then set install conditions in the same way you would for another prerequisite.

The prerequisite does not need to be stored as a local file in your project. During installation, the bootstrapper calls WinGet and runs the selected command. The target machine needs an internet connection.

Note: WinGet prerequisites are available in the Enterprise edition and above.

Find more about this feature in Radu Popescu’s article “WinGet Prerequisites in Advanced Installer”.See how WinGet Prerequisites works in this video demo:

Publish updates without maintaining your own hosting server

Publishing an application update, used to mean you had to host both the update configuration file and the matching MSI or EXE package on your own server.

Updater Cloud brings that hosting step into the Advanced Installer workflow.

Create an Updates Configuration project, add the new version, and select Upload Updates File. Advanced Installer uploads the configuration file and the installer package to your account.

It then fills the installer download URL with the cloud location of the uploaded MSI or EXE.

Return to the MSI project, enable Advanced Updater, and select the uploaded configuration file. When the installed application checks for updates, the Updater reads that file, downloads the matching package from Advanced Installer Cloud, and installs it according to the rules you set.

You can build, connect, and publish the update from Advanced Installer without setting up a separate hosting server for these files or being delayed by the need to synchronize with the separate team that’s managing your web servers in your company.

Updater Cloud is an Add-on that can be used in Enterprise and Architect edition of Advanced Installer. Try Updater Cloud for Free with Advanced Installer 30-day free trial.

More about this feature in the “How to Publish Application Updates Using Updater Cloud” article by Renato Ivanescu.

Sign in with Microsoft or GitHub

New support for Advanced Installer and PacKit sign-in with Microsoft and GitHub accounts is now available. The desktop apps open the browser to complete authentication, then return you to the product.

If no Advanced Installer account exists for the email, the first sign-in creates one. If a password-based account already uses the same email, the provider is linked to that account without creating a duplicate. Users can keep their existing password as another sign-in option.

Desktop sessions stay active between launches and renew in the background. When a session can no longer be renewed, the app asks the user to authenticate again.

This release focuses on provider-based sign-in and does not include tenant administration and role-based access control at the organization level.

Save a backup copy of the existing AIP before overwriting it

Against all recommendations, many teams still keep .AIP files outside source control. If an AIP file becomes damaged or an unwanted change is saved over a working project, recovery can be difficult.

Advanced Installer, starting with the 24.0 version, saves a backup copy of the existing AIP before overwriting it. That gives the user and the support team a previous project copy to work from if the current file can no longer be loaded or does not function as expected. Using proper version control system is still highly recommended.

This is the best way to backup and also keep a record of the changes made on your projects.

New predefined custom action: Copy the installer log to a user-accessible folder

Other important improvements included this year

• Session object for PowerShell Custom Actions
• UI editor for the built-in Licensing dialog
• ARM package option for Mixed Packages
• Digital Signing and other security improvements
• MSIX Package Analysis

More from Advanced Installer:

• Version History
  
• MSIX Changelog
  
• Community Forum
  
• Blog
  
• YouTube Tutorials