Customizing Visual Studio MSIX packaging project output

[MattGregory]

I'm using a Visual Studio MSIX packaging project to create an installer on a network share for an internal application.

One problem is that it's creating a directory with "_Test" at the end.

Why is it doing that and how do I get rid of it? I just want "MyApp.MSIX_0.0.1.0", or ideally, "MyApp.0.0.1.0".

     Directory of I:\

    08/14/2020  09:44 AM    <DIR>          .
    08/14/2020  09:44 AM    <DIR>          ..
    08/14/2020  09:44 AM            21,312 index.html
    08/14/2020  09:23 AM               601 MyApp.MSIX.appinstaller
    08/14/2020  09:37 AM    <DIR>          MyApp.MSIX_0.0.1.0_Test
                   2 File(s)         21,913 bytes
                   3 Dir(s)  62,444,621,824 bytes free

I've been scouring the documentation, but I can't find anything about the directories it creates or the index.html file it generates. I'd like to customize all that, add release notes, etc.

This is a WPF app, if that makes any difference.

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hi @MattGregory ,

The output directory of the packages is defined in the Microsoft.AppxPackage.Targets file at C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v16.0\AppxPackage (depending on your version of Visual Studio).

If you want to remove the "_Test" suffix you can modify the lines defining the output directory. In my file it was around line 3190 - 3196:

To modify the output html file, modify the index.template.html file in the "Landing" subdirectory - C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Enterprise\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v16.0\AppxPackage\Landing (depending on VS version).

Cheers,
Tanaka