Management of desktop applications is one of the key challenges enterprises are looking to address. MSIX is the client application deployment standard here to help you simplify your deployment and reduce your costs. Combined with the MSIX Package Support Framework updating to MSIX is efficient and effective.
Once you’ve packaged the app, it runs in the MSIX Container to guarantee a clean, reliable and trusted install/uninstall of the app, which in turn helps you reduce your long-term deployment maintenance costs. To make this transition seamless we created the Package Support Framework (aka: PSF); an open source lightweight kit that we are very excited to release today on GitHub.
The PSF can help your app bypass, in a very targeted way, some of the modern runtime environment limitations to make sure your existing solution runs as expected without changing its source. If you do have the source it will typically be easier to fix directly in the app itself.
We built the framework by leveraging Detours, which is a software package for re-routing developed by Microsoft research and helps with API redirection.
There are three main workflows where the PSF can help you today:
The PSF will be integrated with the MSIX Packaging Tool and allow you apply and configure fixes easily with tool’s GUI. It can also be easily integrated with other solutions in the market.
What should I do next?
Blog Credit: Vladimir Postel, Senior Program Manager, Microsoft