MSIX software packaging

[craigcamacho]

Hi Guys,

 

I have recently setup Co-Management with SCCM and Intune. Because of the pandemic a lot of my devices are now off site for prolonged periods of time. The first workload i have shifted from SCCM to Intune was Windows Updates which obviously when devices are away from site for weeks or months at a time makes perfect sense to do. I am investigating whether shifting the App deployment workload sometime in the future is worth doing but Intune doesn't seem to support App-V packages which most of mine are so there is going to be an element of repackaging. Microsoft seem to be pushing people away from traditional msi and App-V and towards msix so its seems thats the future and would make sense to go msix. Ive setup the msix packaging environment in Hyper-V and its actually really easy to package an application but one thing ive noticed is when i try and create a shortcut in a subfolder in the start menu it ignores it and just dumps it in the root. My current start menu is basically laid out in departmental sub folders i.e English, Maths and then shortcuts to the apps placed in them.

 

Does anybody else package using msix and what are your opinions of it and is it all that?

[NicholasEsping]

I usually bundle the install files msi or exe into an intunewin file with the Win32 content prep tool and deploy them with intune that way. I have done a few msix packages but I think its easier if you don't have to repackage everything.

[craigcamacho]

Thanks for your reply. I have done it that way before but only for a couple of apps because i am still relatively new to Intune. Also I guess I do have the option of editing an msi file with something like orca and deploying that with Intune. I think I just have that mindset at the moment with the modern desktop buzz but maybe I don't need to modernise everything and even though MS are trying to push msix maybe its not quite there just yet and not what I need. I think I half knew that before I posted this but wanted other peoples take on msix and deploying apps with Intune.