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Image: It’s Time to Start your MSIX journey: Microsoft Announcement

Some background on MSIX

MSIX has been announced by Microsoft last year (2018) as the next generation deployment technology for Windows 10 devices. MSIX comes with many advantages compared to traditional script-based or MSI-based installers. A few of them include:

  • Reliable installs and uninstalls
  • Auto update to apps
  • Network and storage optimization
  • And many more…

Ever since the announcement, Microsoft has been making huge strides in the development of this technology and encouraging everyone to experience how they could benefit from this new package type. The support of MSIX went officially live with the Windows 10 1809 update.

Why should I try now?

When the package type was announced and eventually released in the Windows 10 1809 update, Microsoft received extensive feedback about backward compatibility to older Windows platforms. Cognizant of the importance of this, Microsoft has now announced official support of MSIX to Windows 10 1709 and 1803 builds. The announcement is available here.

As with any new improvements, this announcement comes with some limitations, as outlined here, but nothing that stops you from getting started.

How can I get started?

If you are an existing InstallShield customer using an MSI-based project, you can get started with the simple steps below:

1. Open your Basic MSI project

2. Navigate to Releases APPX/MSIX tab

3. In the Package Type, select MSIX

4. Navigate to Signing tab and ensure that digital signing information is provided and the ‘Sign Output Files’ is set to Setup.exe

5. Just build your project.

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6. Navigate to <Release Folder>\MsixPackage\MSIX

7. Launch your MSIX package and click on Install.

For a close look, try an evaluation copy here and let us know what you think.

As usual, we’d love to hear your feedback