MSIX is a modern technology that has transformed the way we approach software installations and deployments, both for individual users and enterprises.

For those working with application packaging or deployment, MSIX is a name that keeps cropping up. It's Microsoft’s modern packaging format designed to streamline app deployment, improve updates, and enhance security.

In some cases, changing the packaging type of an application requires going back to the drawing board. Even though Advanced Installer's GUI lets you convert MSIX packages by importing them, changing the packaging type of an application can still be a bit tricky.

As an IT professional, you might have come across Windows Forms (WinForms) when building applications on Windows. WinForms is a free and open source GUI class library included in the .NET Framework that has been heavily used since its release in 2002.

It is commonly known that MSX technology comes with a set of limitations that most of the packagers must deal with, in spite of all its benefits.

We are pleased to announce the Automatic MSIX Conversion and Compatibility Analysis Framework, moving us one step forward in our mission to provide software engineers with the most robust MSIX technology support in the industry.

Environmental variables, as their name implies, are variables that specify the environment in which a program runs.

In our previous blog post, Azure Virtual Desktop - Step by Step Guide of Creating, Configuring and Managing your AVD setup, we took a look at how we can set up an Azure Virtual Desktop environment.

Adobe Reader DC (Document Cloud) is one of the most popular tools to manage PDFs. Adobe Reader DC installation is an executable (EXE) file.

Building an MSIX package for your app? Use the table below to check what Windows version you can target, depending on the features you are using.

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.

A digital signature guarantees the authenticity of an electronic document or message in an electronic format. In the software industry, code signing provides an added layer of security and trust that you're using a code that comes from an original vendor and not a third-party that could have maliciously altered the code.

Starting with Windows 10 (version 20H2), Microsoft added the option to group MSIX Shortcuts in the Start Menu. This is a particularly convenient feature that was highly requested by the packaging community.

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.

MSIX packages lack built-in support for installing a desktop shortcut. This is mainly because Microsoft recommends that user preferences are exclusively chosen by the user. So, for instance, creating a Desktop shortcut or pinning it to the Taskbar or Start Menu are not things we can control.

Many popular Windows features like Notifications, File Explorer Context Menu or Shares cannot be used by non-(MSIX)-packaged Win32 applications.

A “Sparse” package contains an AppxManifest.xml but, unlike a regular/full package, the manifest can reference files outside its package in a predetermined 'external location’.

Although not as popular and widely adopted as MSI, ClickOnce has been around for some time in the application packaging industry. ClickOnce enables you to create self-updating Windows-based applications that can be installed and run with minimal user interaction.

Prior to Windows 10 version 2004, if your MSIX package contained an HKCU registry and your application tried to modify it, the operation would crash.