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… But what about App-V?

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With the advent of MSIX you might be wondering

 

"Should I move to MSIX now"?        Or       "Why am I investing in App-V?"

 

This post will help you understand the current state of  MSIX and where it's heading.

 

How the product evolved

Before we dig down into the future and ways to align infrastructure decisions , let's have a brief look at the past and how this all comes together.

App-V has been around now for more than ten years and “appx” another isolated package format was introduced with Windows 8 in 2012. Appx provided several new features and a strict  isolation method .

Starting with Windows 10 1809 MSIX will  replace AppX as Package-Format completely. But it's not just replacing the File-Extension. MSIX will drastically extend the usage and configuration options while reducing known limitations. Ultimate target for MSIX is to provide a common package standard for UWP and Windows applications.

 

Let's talk about future

Preparing plans for the future requires knowledge and reliable facts. So let's sum up some of those:

  • MSIX will be available in late 2018
  • App-V is a Windows 10 Inbox product in every Windows 10 Edition currently supported.
  • Every Windows 10 release with an Inbox App-V Client will extend support time frames
  • A MSIX converter will preserve previous investments into App-V
  • All current Appx Apps will be 100% supported in MSIX

Silver bullet to MSIX

Basically there are several different paths for MSIX migration depending on the current state of your environment these are:

No containerization solution in place

Start early and evaluate AppX conversion and gain experience as soon as MSIX is released.

App-V not in use but planned

Go ahead and start an App-V project to introduce containerization. You'll love it's features and prepare yourself for modern deployment workflows. All investments made now will help during the migration to MSIX.

App-V is used

Starting in Fall 2018 you should start evaluating MSIX technology and it's features. Having MSIX as new package format will give you access to more delivery methods helping you extend usage of containerized applications. Migration itself should be planned as soon as App-V and MSIX  have feature parity.

 

MSIX and App-V will still coexist for several releases and App-V will still remain as an inbox capability of Windows 10, at present there are no plans to remove it.

 

Johannes Freundorfer and Ingmar Oosterhoff

Comments

  • Anonymous
    February 25, 2019
    What about App-V Server (Full Infrastructure)? While I am definitely looking forward to MSIX, I have not seen much of a roadmap for how us with App-V Server should be planning for the future. Thanks!
    • Anonymous
      February 26, 2019
      Hi Cody, This is a real good question and we are having some discussions at the moment what to do with the App-V Server. There are some downsides like the Official supported DB's (SQL Server 2014) where customer already use later Versions. I can confirm that we are looking into this and see that there is a gap between now and the time when MSIX is ready. But right now I can't share anything more than that. Thanks for your comment on this. Sebastian