Will 2019 be the year of MSIX? We shall see! More certain is the immediate need to understand application compatibility issues that may surface when moving from one version of Windows 10 to the next. In AdminStudio 2019, we’ve made these two areas our focus for this first release. MSIX Enhancements We’ve got more MSIX for you! As we continue to iterate on our support for the up and coming deployment format MSIX, in AdminStudio 2019 we now offer bulk conversion of packages to MSIX. MSIX is a new packaging format introduced by Microsoft in March 2018. Microsoft continues to work to establish MSIX as the future of Windows software installation taking the best from packaging formats of the past (MSI, App-V, App-X, Click to Run, etc.). The MSIX packaging format is still evolving and not a state where Enterprise are ready to leverage it in production, but it is close! Indicators include a lack of MSIX packages on the market even from Microsoft a year after its announcement, yet MSIX generates significant interest and is a hot topic. For insights regarding MSIX and what it may mean to you as a Windows enterprise administrator, see our webinar series and know that AdminStudio will provide everything you want and more when it comes to meeting your expectations as the market’s leading solution. We were among the first few to support the MSIX, within weeks of it being announced, introducing support for MSIX suitability testing in AdminStudio 2018 R2 back in June 2018. Soon after we added support by our popular Repackaging tool and in AdminStudio we promised more and are delivering on that promise now. AdminStudio 2019 offers batch conversion of MSI and legacy setups to MSIX leveraging our powerful Automated Application Converter (AAC) (one of the many tools that make up the AdminStudio suite). AAC also includes an assessment for MSIX suitability offering statuses like ‘MSIX Conversion not recommended’, ‘Ready’ and ‘Requires Repackaging’, which can help identify the right set of packages for the conversions before you kick off the actual conversion process. With this, the entire conversion process can be automated within AdminStudio which will save your time, effort (and therefore money). AdminStudio includes the industry leading setup suite InstallShield and in this release we provide InstallShield 2019 which offers native support for MSIX as a project type. Now you can use this same familiar interface to create or edit native MSIX packages without need for conversion. Windows 10 Continuous Compatibility Customers love how we lower the risk of deployments with our application compatibility reports. One of the most common requests we’ve been getting is to help better assess application compatibility between discrete builds of Windows 10. We love customer feedback and we listen! Microsoft has moved away from the way it has historically offered Windows to customers, where we would expect a major new version every 3-5 years. With Windows 10, Microsoft has adopted a new model referred to as Windows-as-a-service. With this new model, Microsoft plans to release Windows updates twice a year, and these new versions will be treated as updates as opposed to major new versions of Windows 10. As we are now expected to adopt updates to Windows 10 as frequently as twice a year, concerns with respect to application compatibility are also more routine. AdminStudio helps Enterprises with this continuous compatibility by running assessment tests. With AdminStudio 2019, instead of the previous single set of tests for Windows 10, you’ll now see the last 5 versions of Windows 10 (today 1607, 1703, 1709, 1803 and 1809). Staying current with the latest versions of Windows 10 is going to be a continuous and routine process for the Enterprises in the future and this feature of AdminStudio will help customers by providing insights into applications compatibility issues for any given Windows 10 version. With this insight, customers can proactively identify and fix compatibility issues. We wanted to get these features out right away, but rest assured we have more exciting plans for later this year including help building silent deployment packages that leverage vendor setups without repackaging or converting at all. Stay tuned! ... View more