One of the best tools that IT professionals can have in their arsenal is a packaging tool. This simplifies their tasks and saves them time. Businesses need to provide their IT teams with comprehensive packaging tools that are easy to deploy and highly compatible.
One such product that has garnered a significant amount of interest is Advanced Installer. What you get with this powerful packaging tool for developers, businesses, and ISVs, among others, is an advanced application packaging software. It simplifies software deployment in a big way.
And before fully committing, organizations can try out the trial version. It comes with full features allowing them to make a more informed decisions. To help you with that task, let’s go over what you have to look forward to with Advanced Installer.
Introduction
As already mentioned, Advanced Installer is a software packaging and deployment tool designed to eliminate the challenges often encountered with packaging and updating software.
Clients get an all-in-one packaging tool that can create, edit, update, and repackage MSI, EXE, App-V, APPX, and MSIX. Because of the user-friendly and intuitive design as well as the plethora of features and capabilities, IT professionals should expect an application that optimizes the packaging process.
Businesses will also appreciate how easy the integration will be. They’ll also enjoy the compatibility that provides support for various platforms and formats. In addition, IT professionals can easily create customizable and visually appealing installers. They can also benefit from the integration of Advanced Installer with popular development tools and environments.
Ultimately, using Advanced Installer gives your organization a product that enables you to build reliable MSI packages. These meet the latest Microsoft Windows logo certification requirements and generally follow the recommended Windows Installer best practices.
Requirements
Before proceeding with the purchase and installation of Advanced Installer, it’s also important to be aware of the specific requirements that the application demands. In the table below, you’ll find both the hardware and software requirements that you need to know.
| Hardware | Software |
| Required minimum: Core 2 class CPU1GB RAM1366 × 768 screen resolution 2GB hard drive space | Advanced Installer IDE – for Advanced Installer to run properly on a system, you will need: Windows 7 or newer. The latest Windows Platform SDK. However, this is optional as it will only be required when building certain types of packages. |
| What is recommended: i5 class CPU4GB RAM1920 × 1200 screen resolution 10GB hard drive space | Create Install Packages – Advanced Installer produces MSI or EXE install files that are designed to run on: Windows 7 or newer Windows Server 2008 R2 or newer. |
| Create MSIX Packages – Advanced Installer produces MSIX packages that are designed to run on: Windows 10 version 1507 or newer Windows Server 2016 (Long Term Servicing Channel) or newer. | |
| For Java – Advanced Installer for Java can create install bundles to install Java programs on these versions of MacOS: Mac OS 10.x Power PC Mac OS 10.x Intel. | |
| Windows 10/11 Compatibility – Advanced Installer and the EXE/MSI install packages it generates have been shown to work on Windows 10 and Windows 11. |
Latest upgrades
Some new, recently announced updates for Advanced Installer are available. One in particular of great interest is the new nested Context Menus for File Associations in MSIX. The goal of this feature is to give organizations a more organized and efficient user interface. It ultimately streamlines the management of file associations.
As a result of this, you should have improved navigation and better usability. Moreover, clients will now also find a reboot option for NewPrerequisite and UpdatePrerequisite command lines coupled with support for Java versions 19 through 22.
The above improvements combine with new translations for default strings, a refactored build log for improved clarity, and an AppInstaller theme that is now supporting BrowseDlg dialog for a better user experience. More than just the new features, however, Advanced Installer has addressed challenges that clients were facing, including:
- Fix EXE icon issue in non-English language projects.
- Addressing the problem of the “Install side-by-side” option not always preserved on upgrades.
- Fixing the reboot prompt issues during uninstallation.
- Resolved the issue that was causing files to be digitally signed twice in an MSIX build.
- Address the problem causing the description field to fail to set MSI name in UAC using trusted signing.
- Corrected the issue causing the system to not prompt for the certificate password when the entered password was incorrect.
- Resolved the problem of scheduled tasks failing if they were scheduled to run at task creation.
Available features
In the table below, you’ll find a few of the wide range of features that Advanced Installer has to offer.
| Architect | Enterprise | Professional | Freeware |
| Repackager – seamlessly capture, customize, and repackage existing installations into MSI packages. Upgrade legacy setups to Windows Installer technology. | Updater – checking for downloads and installation of patches and updates is done automatically. | IIS – Web Sites, Virtual Directories and Web Applications, App-Pools, User Accounts. | MSI – create valid MSI setups for your applications that meet all the written and unwritten Windows Installer rules. |
| MSI Quick-Edit – enables you to create, transform, or edit existing MSI packages directly from the Advanced Installer GUI. | JSON Files Updates – without writing any code, you can manage JSON files that are part of the installation package or present on the target machine. | Multilingual and Localized – get over 30 translations that are all ready to use, as well as easy to modify and create. | UAC – build installers that will run seamlessly on Windows 10/8.1/8/7/Vista supporting the security model. |
| MSIX Custom Scripts – use PowerShell scripts to resolve any of the compatibility issues of your application after you create an MSIX. | Installer Continuous Integration – provides built-in support for integration with Azure DevOps, GitHub Actions, Jenkins, TeamCity, and Bamboo. | Themes – also get over 50 built-in beautiful themes to give your installer a professional look. | Imports – bring in relevant imports from Visual Studio, InstallShield LE, Inno Setup, WiX, Eclipse, NSIS, and regular MSI/MSM packages. |
| MSIX Package Editor – can offer an immediate view of your package content, enabling you to customize anything from Advanced Installer’s user interface. | Dialog Editor – enables you to visually customize existing installer dialogs or create new ones entirely from scratch. | Custom Actions – if you execute your code during installation, you can extend your installer’s capabilities. | 32-bit or 64-bit – provides the option to build setups that both run and install on 32-bit processors and/or the latest 64-bit Intel and AMD CPUs. |
| MSIX Modification Packages – enables you to extend and update your MSIX packages. You’ll also be able to separate your main application package from its updates, thus speeding up Windows 10 updates. | Convert EXE installers to MSIs – an extremely capable wizard that converts any EXE setup into an MSI ready for network deployment through Active Directory. | Native Launcher – create a native launcher for your Java applications and customize the process name, file name, icon, version, splash-screen, JRE/JDK detection and selection, user-friendly error handling. | Side-by-side – if you have different versions of your application and want to not only install them simultaneously but have them running side by side, you can easily create packages for all the different versions. |
| Package Support Framework – the capabilities of the PSF integration for MSIX packages will allow you to minimize any AppCompat issues without writing any code. | Office Add-ins – leverage the included specialized templates to greatly simplify the creation of installers for popular software platform extensions, plug-ins, and add-ins. | Prerequisites – search for, download, and install prerequisite applications, frameworks, and run-times. | Upgrades – older versions of your product installed on the user’s machine will be detected and upgraded. Additionally, installation over newer ones will be blocked. |
Pricing and Licensing
Once you have decided to use Advanced Installer, you can go ahead and start the purchase from the purchase page. For those who may need additional clarification on any issue, they can quickly find assistance with the support team. Once completed, you can start planning to deploy the package you choose on certain machines.
Fortunately, there is no limit to the number of machines you can deploy a package. As long as you have a licensed version of Advanced Installer, you can successfully create an unlimited number of install packages. You can then distribute these packages royalty-free to any number of users
When it comes to the issue of upgrades, you can purchase your subscription/license upgrade from the upgrades page. After upgrading your subscription, you’ll need to log out before logging in again. Once logged into Advanced Installer, you can refresh your subscription details. For clients with perpetual licenses, their license keys won’t change.
All they have to do is run the registration wizard once more in Advanced Installer. You can get access to the features from the new edition to which you upgraded by opening the project in Advanced Installer. In the toolbar, go to Home > Options > Project Type tab, and choose the desired project type.
The table below contains information regarding the pricing structure.
| Architect | Enterprise | Professional | |
| Cost | $359 per user per month. The option for a team subscription is available. | $139 per user per month. The option for a team subscription is available. | $39 per user per month. The option for a team subscription is available. |
| What you get | In addition to everything that Enterprise offers, you will also get Repackager, MSI Quick-Edit, Reports Generator, App-V, MSIX (Re)packaging, MSIX Package Editor, SCCM, and Intune. | In addition to everything you get in Professional, you also get CI/CD Integration, Dialog Editor, Updater, XML Patching, Databases, Trial and Licensing, Merge Modules Authoring, EXE to MSI (wrapper), Automated VM Testing, and Drivers. | The main features available include Trusted Signing Native Integration, Visual Studio Extension, PowerShell Automation, MSIX, Themes, Services, Prerequisites, IIS, .NET, COM, ODBC, Internationalisation, Java Native Launcher, and Installer Analytics. |
Registration process
After purchasing Advanced Installer, you can now begin the registration process. However, if you are using the Freeware version, registration is not necessary. Clients that opt for the Professional, Enterprise, and Architect versions will require a valid registration to continue use after the trial period has lapsed. All you need to do is navigate to the File > Help > Register menu.
ONLINE REGISTRATION
If you want to download the license online, then the first thing you’ll need is an internet connection. With that established, Advanced Installer will connect to the appropriate server and download the license file to your device.
REGISTRATION BY EMAIL
In this case, an internet connection is not a requirement for the device in question. Once you have noted your Computer ID, you can email it in using any other device connected to the internet. Coupled with the valid License Key, you should forward these details to support at advancedinstaller.com. You can also expect to receive your response within 48 hours. The response will contain your license file as well as additional instructions.
LICENSE SERVER REGISTRATION
This method of registration by using a license server is only a valid option for owners with floating licenses. You’ll need to verify that your network administrator has correctly installed and configured the License Server. You won’t be able to complete the registration if you don’t have both the server’s host name and the port number.
Wrap up
Organizations are constantly searching for productivity tools that can empower their teams and increase operational efficiency. Tools such as Advanced Installer are ideal in that they can simplify tasks such as packaging and deployment of software. The capabilities of this application will deliver a faster overall process and a seamless installation experience that minimizes headaches. And as we move forward Advanced Installer will only get better as the development team leverages the feedback from clients.