Windows 10 Creators Update

Written by Bogdan Mitrache · June 20th, 2017

A deep dive into our recent major release, Advanced Installer 14, on the updates it brings for Windows 10 Creators Update.

First of all, we want to thank all our users who visited our booth at BUILD 2017. It was great meeting you all, and we are very excited about improving Advanced Installer to support your ever-changing deployment scenarios.

Debug Desktop Bridge Applications

In our effort to help you get one step closer to packaging your desktop applications and deploy them in the Windows Store, without rewriting your code.

We have built the simplest method for you to debug your Win32./NET code inside of an UWP container, with the help of our Visual Studio extension, for VS 2015 and 2017.

Besides packaging your binaries in both an MSI/EXE and AppX packages, from a single package, now the Advanced Installer project automates (when you press F5) the steps of packaging your AppX, registering it locally, launching the app and attaching to its process with the VS debugger.

Check out the following video to see how easy it is.

Desktop Bridge Setup Converter

For those of you that are not Advanced Installer users, but are looking for an easy way to test if your application can be packaged as an AppX and deployed in the Windows Store, we’ve created the Desktop Bridge Setup Converter.

Desktop Bridge Setup Converter is a free tool which you can download from our website and use it to capture your current installer, then generate an AppX package from it, all with just a few clicks through our wizard.

We’ve collaborated with the Microsoft team to see that what are the struggles met by users with their Desktop App Converter, and based on those learnings, we’ve created a better version.

If you are an Advanced Installer user, there is an easier way to test your app as an AppX, without using this new tool. Just go to Builds page and add a new AppX build in your project. Thus, from a single project, you can serve both new and existing clients (that require an MSI/EXE).

Desktop Bridge Improvements in Advanced Installer

The transition from a desktop app to its Windows Store version should not be a headache for your users, nor for you. Following Microsoft recommendations, you can now configure your app to be migration-ready with just a few clicks from Advanced Installer’s GUI. Check out the following video to discover your options.