Package captures rely on exclusion lists to prevent unwanted file/registry items from being captured in the package. No single exclusion list will ever be right for every capture, so the lists require modification.
The MSIXPackagingTool currently only provides modification through the GUI interface (as far as I know...). It can be seen that the tool saves the tool configuration settings, including any modified list, in a settings.xml file. The ability to modify the list through other means is needed. There are two styles of needs:
- A company team of packagers should generally be able to share a standard settings "template" to be used for most of their packages. It is far better for all packagers at that company to base their work on the same standard template.
- Specific apps will require a special template. This needs to be able to be used to override the standard template when needed. The use of automation must be considered for this use case also.
So here are ideas of changes that could address this:
- The command line interface will need to accept such a file as an argument. This applies to both the local command line and the remote (VM) based approach.
- The ability to set the settings on demand by applying a file in the GUI instead of manual editing of the exclusion list on a line by line basis is needed. The App-V Sequencer had a reasonable model of allowing templated configuration, which could be mimicked.
