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MSIX Hero 0.7.0 lets you manage APPX volumes

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A new version of MSIX Hero is there. The big highlight feature of this build is the support for AppxVolumes, but there are also a few smaller improvements and bug fixes, making this a highly recommended update.

Volume manager

By default, all APPX/MSIX installations happen in C:\Program Files\WindowsApps. This directory actually corresponds to the default volume configured on the target machine. The management of volumes is now implemented in MSIX Hero. Version 0.7 can list, add, remove volumes and also mount/dismount them. You can also set the default volume so that your apps will be always installed where you expect them to be present.

All of these new functions are present in a new tab which has been added in the sidebar (the first one being for packages, and the third one containing the system overview, as desribed in the release notes for version 0.6).

All currently available APPX volumes are visible (both mounted and dismounted). On most of machines, there is just one entry by default (the one marked with a green checkmark).

The ribbon for volumes has a new button which opens the New volume dialog:

You can select the target drive and optionally an absolute folder path (standard is \WindowsApps, but this can be changed to whatever you like). Additionally, there is a checkbox for marking the new volume as the default one. Bear in mind, that every partition/disk can the host of maximum one volume, and this is why some disk letters may not be available in this dialog.

The context menu and the contextual ribbon for every volume has the following options:

The availability of them depends on the volume state, for example you cannot remove or dismount a volume that is currently your default one.

Moving packages between volumes

Setting up the default volume ensures that all future package installations will be automatically saved there. What about changing the installation path of an already installed app?

To move an app, go to the Packages tab and select the package to be moved. Its contextual tab should have a new button Change volume…

Pressing it opens another dialog, where the desired volume can be changed.

Note: On a standard machine with no extra options, there is usually just a single volume available. At least one additional volume has to be created in order to move any package.

Package integrity settings

For packages that support it, the integrity settings are now parsed and displayed in the package sidebar / window:

More information about Package Integrity Enforcement: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/msix/package/signing-package-overview#package-integrity-enforcement

Other changes

  • There is now an extra confirmation window shown before removing a package. The dialog can be disabled in MSIX Hero settings in order to bring back the old behavior (immediate removal).
  • Minor changes in the ordering of buttons in contextual Manage tab for the packages – the button to run the package has been moved and is now shown at the first position.
  • There was a typo in the name of the Home and work networks. The issue is now fixed.
  • The link to open a new folder after creating a modifiction package stub was broken. This issue is now fixed.

Download

The app will be updated automatically in few hours if you installed it from app installer file. New users can download MSIX Hero from the Download page.

Download MSIX Hero (app installer)

Your feedback is important, let me which other features you would like to see in MSIX Hero.

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MSIX Hero 0.6.0 makes most of MSIX on your system

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A new version of MSIX Hero is there. This build has two new features and several other improvements and bug fixes.

New tab: System status

System Status

A sidebar has been added, which changes the mode between the packages list and the new view showing the status of your system.

This is a hub for settings and convenient shortcuts for set-up and maintenaince. It has currently four sections:

  • Developer and sideloading: Enabling and disabling of side-loading and the developer mode.
  • Automatic updates of Store apps: Enabling and disabling automatic download of new versions of apps managed by Microsoft Store.
  • Repackaging on this machine: This is useful for MSIX IT Pros doing repackaging with tools like MSIX Packaging Tool, Advanced Installer, InstallShield, RayPack etc. With a single click, the user can view which services and processes are running, but should be rather disabled in order to avoid repackaging “noise”. It currently covers a bunch of services (for example Windows Update, Windows Search etc.) and also some running processes (Windows Installer, Global Assembly Cache Tool etc.). The list is dynamic and only shows the services and processes that are actually applicable to your environment. For example, below are three suggestions from MSIX Hero, one about still active Windows Update, one about running process (msiexec), and one about a generic setting which is already correctly set-up.
  • MSIX Tooling: This is an experimental view which shows which apps capable of creating, editing or repackaging to MSIX format are currently installed. The selection is currently limited to apps distributed in MSIX format and listed here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/msix/partners. If some app from the list is not yet installed, a button to open its Store page will be shown:
MSIX Tools

Future versions of MSIX Hero will expand this concept by also including selected apps not available in the Store. A feedback about priorities is always welcome!

Capabilities

Capabilities are one of the core security features of APPX/MSIX apps. A declarative manifest from a developer defines upfront what each app may ask for and which extra security/privacy risk is to be attributes with it. The capabilities are easy to discover in manifest files (XML), but reading them is tedious and sometimes confusing due to their cryptic names.

This is where MSIX Hero jumps in, by providing a human-friendly overview of capabilities, separating them to functional groups and with a nice touch of icons and actual name. For example, this is what Adobe XD MSIX app can access when installed on your machine:

MSIX Capabilities

Other improvements

  • In the Dependencies tab, Windows 10 names for both minimal and tested OS are now clickable and open Wikipedia article about Windows 10 version history.
Windows 10 names now clickable
  • Opening MSIX Log Viewer is now much faster. Additionally, it fetches more records at once.
  • Progress bar for loading packages is now displayed directly over the package lists (does not cover the sidebar or other controls) and its messages are now using a slightly different wording.

Resolved issues

  • Sometimes when refreshing the list of installed packages for all users and having at the same time a specific package selected, the refresh routine would enter an endless loop. This is now fixed.
  • For early Windows 10 versions not supporting MSIX, a caption MSIX Core was added automatically. This is now fixed, the caption is only added if and only if the actual target device family name is MSIXCore.Desktop.
  • In previous build due to a regression it was sometimes possible to de-sync normal packages view and its wider variant with columns. This is now fixed.
  • Opening a package without a manifest file could crash the Package Expert window. The issue is now fixed.

Download

The app will be updated automatically in few hours if you installed it from app installer file. New users can download MSIX Hero from the Download page.

Download MSIX Hero (app installer)

Your feedback is important, let me which other features you would like to see in MSIX Hero.

Read more →

MSIX Hero 0.5.21.0

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MSIX Hero has been updated (both MSIX and app installer remote package) to version 0.5.21.0.

Changes and improvements

  • NEW If the package declares support for MSIX Core, the information is now shown in the Dependencies tab. It also tries to show the actual name of the OS from the list of supported operating systems. To distinguish between these items, there is now a different icon for the Tested on section.
  • IMPROVED The default properties of MSIX Hero app installer file are now more liberal. The app does not anymore force the user to perform the upgrade, and the delay between update checks has been increased from 8 hours to 24 hours.
  • IMPROVED Search box displays a small “X” icon. Clicking on it clears the search box.
  • IMPROVED New package header (introduced in the previous release 0.5.14.0) was always upscaling app logos. For some packages (including but not limited to Microsoft Visual C++ Runtimes) the icon were too small and looked jaggy after resizing. In this version, app logos are never upscaled.
  • IMPROVED MSIX Packages created by Advanced Installer that were using their custom proxy app AiStubElevated.exe were not showing the actual target path. This version has an extra recognition function built-in. Note, that the detection of Advanced Installer AiStub.exe proxy has always been functioning just fine.

Resolved issues

  • FIXED The dependencies view is now correctly showing Windows 10 2004 aka May 2020 Update. In previous releases, this upcoming update was only referenced by its version.
  • FIXED In previous versions there was an issue with the package selection not being appropriately reacting to filter and search key changes. On rare occasions, when searching for packages or filtering the list by type, a “limbo” selection could be maintained, affecting the UI and some commands. This issue is now resolved.
  • FIXED There was a little typo (lauch instead of launch) in the app installer editor. The typo is now fixed.

Download

Go to Downloads to get the new version, or start your currently installed MSIX Hero to trigger an auto-update.

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MSIX Hero 0.5.14.0

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MSIX Hero has been updated (both MSIX and app installer remote package) to version 0.5.14.0.

Feature highlight

  • NEW PSF fix-ups have now a dedicated tab. The new tab shows a pretty detailed, yet human-friendly overview of config.json and supports the following:
    • Redirection fixup
    • Trace fixup
    • Electron fixup
    • Other fix-ups are displayed but their config is treated as raw JSON file.

PSF tab is disabled for packages that do not use PSF.

By the way, this view is currently read-only. In one of the next updates, MSIX Hero will also get its own WYSIWYG config.json editor, which will reuse large parts of this new UI.

Other changes and improvements

  • NEW New header with basic package information in Package Expert and package sidebar.
Important properties like the package name, publisher and version are now always visible together with the product icon.
  • IMPROVED Algorithm for automatic calculation of required VHD size (MSIX app attach) has been improved in this build and accounts now for some NTFS pecularities.
  • FIXED In several dialogs, the main action button (for saving, creating etc.) was always disabled even on the confirmation screen. In this build, the button will be disabled as soon as the confirmation screen is shown.
  • FIXED Previous version displayed wrong version of package authoring tool for MSIX built with RayPack. In this version, the version is accurate.
  • FIXED Changing package selection was previously causing unnecessary second loading of manifest file. This has been fixed in this build.

Go to Downloads to get the new version, or start your currently installed MSIX Hero to trigger an auto-update.

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MSIX Hero 0.5.0.0

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A new version of MSIX Hero has been released, with the main focus on usability improvements.

Version 0.5.0.0 contains the following changes:

Changelog

  • NEW Package Expert dialog, allowing opening of MSIX files or manifests from disk. Press FILE > OPEN and choose Manifest or MSIX Package for a quick preview of package content, dependencies, PSF configuration and all features which were previously available only for already installed packages.
  • NEW Dropping .msix or .appinstaller files from the Explorer window opens them in a new window (maximum 10 at once) – this is just a handy shortcut of invoking Package Expert dialog or app installer editor.
  • NEW Command line support for opening .msix and .appinstaller files. If a single argument is provided, MSIX Hero tries to open the file based on its extension. This is yet another way of invoking the Package Expert.
  • IMPROVED Double clicking a package in the packages view opens a new resizable window with all information visible in the sidebar.
  • FIXED Fixed a bug in reading properties from certain AppxManifest.xml files.

Go to Downloads to get the new version, or start your currently installed MSIX Hero to trigger an auto-update.

MSIX Hero 0.5.0.0

HOW TO: Preview packages and manifests with MSIX Hero

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MSIX Hero 0.4.0.0

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Hello, here is another update to MSIX Hero. Main feature highlight of this new version 0.4.0.0 is the ability to display Package Support Framework scripts. Also, this update fixes several issues and improves UI, especially the package sidebar.

Showing PSF scripts plus a new design of the package sidebar.

Changelog

  • NEW MSIX Hero is showing PS1 scripts (a relatively new function added recently to the Package Support Framework). The sidebar shows the name, a few basic information about each script and it displays a link that can be used to open the script in a default editor.
  • IMPROVED New design of the package sidebar. Some tabs were moved around so that similar or related information are next to each other. Redirections (fix-ups), traicing information and other features of PSF are now displayed in the same tab. Similar visual tweaks have been done in the Dependencies tab.
  • IMPROVED Added keyword highlighting in the application list. Additionally, it is now possible to search for versions.
  • IMPROVED Several important values in the package sidebar (for example package full name or family name) are now selectable.
  • IMPROVED Changed the caption from Desktop Bridge and Desktop Bridge + PSF to Win32 and Win32 + PSF respectively.
  • IMPROVED The ribbon and tab items are now subtly animated when changing the selection.
  • FIX Fixed a bug with recognition of framework and UWP apps.
  • FIX After refreshing the package selection was not properly restored.
  • FIX Sorting by name was using internal name instead of the display name.
  • FIX Missing icon in UAC Dialog during self-elevation.

Additionally, this version has tons of internal changes for new upcoming features. Stay tuned for next updates 🙂

More information

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MSIX Hero 0.3.32.0

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Version 0.3.32.0 is now available for download for new and existing users. The main focus of this minor update are improvements and resolved issues in the MSIX app attach VHD generator module.

  • NEW A new checkbox for automatic extraction of .cer file
  • IMPROVED Removed implicit dependency on Hyper-V PowerShell module.
  • IMPROVED Scripts for staging, registering etc. (if selected) are now saved in the same folder as the VHD and they are prefixed with VHD name for an easier identification.
  • FIX Fixed problems with getting correct package names in generated scripts

The new naming convention for scripts and .cer files produces the following structure:

Scripts and certificate file have now the same name base, equal to the name of the VHD image. This way it is easier to group the resources together, even if extracted to the same folder.

The article Creating VHD for MSIX app attach has been updated to reflect these changes.

HOW TO: Creating VHD for MSIX app attach

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MSIX Hero 0.3.30.0

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Version 0.3.30.0 is now available for download for new and existing users. This is a minor update which focuses on the following improvements:

  • NEW Ability to configure tools invoked in package context
  • NEW Support for arguments and running tools as administrator
  • IMPROVED Improved look and feel of the in-ribbon gallery with tools
  • IMPROVED Added shield (UAC) icons to several actions in the main ribbon that require admin rights
  • IMPROVED Forward and backward compatibility of application settings
  • FIX Removed UPDATE tab from the settings, they are now only available in the About window
  • FIX Wrong icon for removing package from the context menu
  • FIX Fixed a few minor bugs in the settings when opening the dialog for the second time in a row

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