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kierenk's avatar
kierenk
Copper Contributor
May 15, 2023

Packaging USB drivers as MSIX

Hi everyone,

I have a msix packaged application which we are distributing using appinstaller. The application interacts with other hardware peripherals which requires USB drivers to be installed and Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable packages for Visual Studio 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2022.

Traditionally we have asked the end users to install the USB drivers (installer exe) manually. However, we are looking for a more seamless experience where we can package the drivers into a msix package which can be delivered with our appinstaller. 

I have read that MSIX does not support the installation of USB drivers, however I am wondering if anyone had a similar use case and had a workaround for this?

So far I have tried packaging the installer using MSIX packaging tool, however that did not work.

1 Reply

  • TarekW's avatar
    TarekW
    Copper Contributor
    Aug 05, 2026

    Hi,

    it might be a bit late, but I have found a workaround for that.

    I am bringing an app to the store that has a few drivers inside of its package.

    There is a Cli.exe in the package that installs the drivers that are shipped with it.

    You can make a button or promt to install the Store Driver Catalog app, then you can use a command to make the cli install the packages you need.

    This should make your app safe and you dont need allowElevation for your package.

    Developer App
          |
          | Check catalog installation
          v
    Store Driver Catalog installed?
          |
          +---- No ----> Open Microsoft Store
          |                    |
          |               User installs catalog
          |                    |
          +<-------------------+
          |
          | Run:
          | StoreDriverCatalogCLI.exe install <driver-id>
          v
    Store Driver Catalog
          |
          | Installes selected trusted driver
          | Requests UAC when required
          v
    Driver installed
          |
          v
    Developer App uses the driver