The biggest change in this release (compared to previous version 2.0.46) is the overhaul of the Update Impact dialog, which received several new features and improvements:
Changes
Rewritten Update Impact analyzer
Added duplication and bar layout views
Added CLI support via updateImpact verb
Improved performance, especially for big packages
Ability to export to XML and start a new comparison
Added context menu item to open the Change Volume dialog for the selected package
Minor UI changes
Changed colors of invalid input fields from red to yellow
Validation icons are consistent (tab items, input texts, dialogs, the settings view)
Tab items have now bigger padding
Added extra help with tooltip in the Modification Package section, checkbox Copy to VFS
Bug fixes
Fixed a problem with the partition drop-down, which was not showing any value in the Change Volume dialog
Fixed a problem with invisible text on Windows 10 with dark mode enabled
Fixed broken CLI verb dependencies
Fixed a problem with file overview in the Update impact dialog, which was not correct for packages having uncompressed Appx blocks (for example ZIP files)
Fixed a regression in Winget editor, where the dialog would crash with “Invalid filter” exception
Fixed a problem with Modification Package dialog, where the checkbox “Copy to VFS” was not reacting to changes of other controls
The new version can be downloaded from the Download page.
A new version of MSIX Hero (0.9) has been released. This build contains new functions and several improvements and fixes to reported issues.
Analyzing update impacts
This new feature lets you compare two packages from the same family (but with different version) and estimate the update impacts. MSIX has an out-of-the-box support for byte-level differencing, which is super handy during updates, where the MSIX source is on a remote location. The MSIX framework is intelligent enough to understand what has actually changed between two versions, and only download the chunks, containing the changed or added content.
With MSIX Hero, you can do a dry-run, and see how much really needs to be re-downloaded. For example, the following picture shows the update impact when updating MSIX Hero from version 0.6 to 0.9:
This means that although the new package contains as much as 67 MB files (25 MB after compression), only 1.9 MB will be downloaded on your computer when executing this particular update path. This is is just around 7.7% of the total package size, a true relief for the msixhero.net server 🙂
You can also use the other tabs to find out about the exact size of added, changed, deleted or unchanged resources, plus an exact list of changed files with their impact on the overall update.
In order to start playing around, press Update impact analyzer in the Tools ribbon and follow the on-screen instructions.
Version 0.9 has a limitation – it can only compare MSIX/APPX packages. Support for bundles will be added later.
Event viewer has been promoted to the main screen
Prior to MSIX Hero 0.9, in order to view MSIX/APPX logs, it was necessary to open a dialog by going to HOME > MSIX event logs.
MSIX Hero Version 8.3
In this new version, the viewer for logs is available directly from the left panel:
MSIX Hero Version 0.9
A few visual changes have been applied:
More logs are read at once
It is possible to filter the list by using the search box
The type of the log is now an icon instead of text
Three buttons are displayed in the ribbon to open the system Event viewer with the requested data loaded.
Compact package list now shows architecture instead of the package type
In the compact view, the place of the package type (UWP, Win32 etc.) has been now taken by the architecture (x86, x64 etc). You can still see the old value in the full list view (by dragging the splitter between the list and the sidebar) or in the sidebar.
Left: MSIX Hero 0.8.3. Right: MSIX Hero 0.9.
By the way, it is now possible to sort and group the list by the value of the Architecture column.
Small visual adjustments
There are small visual adjustments in this builds. Most of them are visible in the package list and the ribbon:
The background color for contextual tabs changed from green to dark blue:
MSIX Hero 0.8.3
MSIX Hero 0.9
Several lines and borders have been removed for some cleaner look and feel:
MSIX Hero 0.8.3
MSIX Hero 0.9.0
A button to open Settings has been added at the bottom of the left sidebar.
The top bar in the Package Expert window and in the package sidebar is now a bit smaller to allow for more content.
Other changes
Some packages with custom namespace prefixes (other than ns or uap) could be read improperly in versions prior to 0.9. This has been fixed in this build.
Several operations are now cancellable.
A problem with inconsistent tile color in the package list and in the sidebar has been fixed in this build.
Download
The app will be updated automatically in a few hours if you installed it from app installer file. New users can download MSIX Hero from the Download page.
