AdminStudio 2024 R2 is now live and available for download from the Product and License Center . This new version – AdminStudio 2024 R2, includes the following new features and enhancements:

Monitored Directory Enhancements -

We have introduced a new section Alternate Location in the Monitored Directory. It enhances application import management for package automation. This feature allows users to configure an alternate location to move or copy applications from the Shared Directory to a New Directory, streamlining the import process. Some customers use Monitored Directories as temporary drop points for sharing applications but require a more secure, permanent repository managed by the IT team. With this enhancement, application owners can upload new versions directly to the shared directory for packaging, after which packages are relocated to a permanent repository for management. AdminStudio retrieves packages from the Monitored Directory and updates their references once they are copied to the new location, ensuring a clean and efficient packaging workflow.

Wrap MSIX Packages to PowerShell Wrapped format -

With this update, you can now use the Wrap Package Wizard to wrap an MSIX package into a PowerShell wrapped package (.ps1).

Enhanced Automation Capabilities in AdminStudio -

The AdminStudioHostService is a new Windows service introduced as part of the AdminStudio suite installation. It is designed to manage and maintain background processes critical to AdminStudio’s package automation capabilities. Once installed and configured, this service ensures that the AdminStudio Host remains active, allowing scheduled automation tasks to run without the need for the AdminStudio user interface to be open. This improves the efficiency and reliability of automation by enabling essential processes to run continuously in the background.

PowerShell Cmdlets / REST API Enhancements -

Several new PowerShell Cmdlets and REST APIs for Monitored Directory have been introduced to leverage the package automation capabilities of AdminStudio.

InstallShield 2024 R1 Integration -

The latest version of InstallShield 2024 R1 is included in the AdminStudio 2024 R2 release.

Congratulations to everyone involved for their tireless efforts in bringing this release to fruition. Your dedication and hard work are greatly appreciated!

For the release notes, please click here.

The first major release of AdminStudio for 2024 is now live and available for download from the Product and License Center . This new version – AdminStudio 2024, includes the following new features and enhancements:

Bulk Migration of Applications from ConfigMgr to Microsoft Intune

A new Migration Wizard button is now featured on the Home tab ribbon. This powerful new tool supports the bulk migration of applications from ConfigMgr to Intune via the Application Catalog. During the migration process, applications are automatically converted to the intunewin format and published to the Intune distribution system, simplifying and optimizing the application management experience.

Support for Intune Assignments

he Home Application View now includes an Intune Assignments tab, allowing for easy management of Intune assignments. Additionally, the Application Catalog tree features a new Distribute Assignments context menu for distributing and publishing Intune assignments. The Distribution Wizard has also been updated with a Publish Selected Application Assignments checkbox, enabling the simultaneous publication of applications and their Intune assignments to the deployment system, further simplifying the deployment process.

App-V to MSIX Conversion

AdminStudio has enhanced its capabilities to convert App-V packages to MSIX format. This update supports both single and bulk conversions through the Conversion Wizard and Automated Application Converter (AAC).

Running Custom Script after Publishing to ConfigMgr

In the ConfigMgr Distribution Plugin, you can now add Script Information to be executed after publishing an application, streamlining post-publishing processes like deployments to end-point client machines.

Test on Virtual Machine Enhancements

With this update, we have expanded functionality in AdminStudio to include launching shortcuts and performing uninstallations of packages using command line switches, in addition to the existing capability to test installed packages. Detailed reports of these actions can now be accessed under the Functional Testing Assessment section within the Analyze Tab.

Update Applications Using the Update Application Wizard

Introducing the "Update Application" feature in AdminStudio! You can now access this functionality under the Distribute button on the ribbon or via a new context menu in the Home tab. This enhancement allows for launching the Update Application Wizard directly for any selected application, streamlining the process of updating existing applications in ConfigMgr to their latest versions with ease and efficiency.

Customization of Silent Switches to New Version

We have introduced new capabilities in AdminStudio's Automation Workflows for Package Automation. Now, when an application is set for automation, any customizations specified in the installation command of the older version will be carried forward and applied to the newer version seamlessly. This feature can be enabled via the "Customized Switches to new version" option available in the Import action and Package Feed Options tab. In the Silent Command Line Arguments panel, a pencil icon visually indicates that the install command line from the older version is retained for the same application in the catalog. Users can update and retrieve the install command line from the Package Feed by clicking the "Reset to Package Feed" button, ensuring accurate deployment configurations across versions.

Customization of Output Directories

The Output Directories have been enhanced with significant improvements. Users can now specify locations for storing converted packages and configure authentication types for accessing shared locations during conversions. Additionally, placeholders have been introduced to streamline the publishing process across various distribution plugins. Similar placeholders have been added to the wrap process, further streamlining and enhancing the management and organization of packages.

PowerShell Cmdlets / REST API Enhancements

New PowerShell cmdlets and REST APIs have been developed to manage extended attributes for packages, including their addition, update, and deletion. Additionally, new APIs have been introduced to facilitate migration from ConfigMgr to Intune and manage assignments to Intune, enhancing the overall functionality and integration capabilities. Please refer the release notes for more detailed information.

To see full release notes, please click here .

AdminStudio 2023 R2 Service Pack 1 is now live and available for download from the Product and License Center . This is a minor release of AdminStudio, yet with a great set of valuable features:

• While AdminStudio’s Backlog Management capability helps you effectively manage your backlog of new package requests, with its ability to match your imported software inventory and new package requests against the applications in the Package Feed Module and the AdminStudio catalog, it also enables you to identify unmanaged applications in your inventory and import them into the catalog, to bring the identified unmanaged applications under your supervision and management. This release of AdminStudio introduces a set of new reports to provide you with a comprehensive snapshot of the package requests in your backlog, for example: how many of your package requests are covered by the Package Feed Module, how many are already available in your catalog, how many of them are subscribed for automation, etc. enabling you to take decisions for better backlog management.
• An Intunewin package must have a detection rule for its deployment to the endpoints from Microsoft Intune so, it becomes mandatory to add at least one detection rule to the Intunewin packages in AdminStudio before publishing them to Intune. For MSIs imported in a catalog, AdminStudio will always add detection rules automatically, and when such MSIs are converted to Intunewin packages, the detection rules from MSI are carried over to Intunewin packages. With this update, AdminStudio can automatically add a customizable PS1 script as a detection rule to Intunewin as part of conversions from EXE packages, if the EXE packages do not have already detection rules taking away the manual work for adding the detection rule to Intunewin packages.
• Upon launching the MSIX Editor tool in AdminStudio, you will now see the Recently Opened Packages view. This view will help you easily get back to those MSIX packages that you have been recently working on but had to leave in the middle or if you would like to go back to the MSIX packages to review the updates you made to the package.
• MSIX Editor helps you trace MSIX packages to identify runtime issues and recommends appropriate fixups when issues are found while tracing. Additionally, you can manually apply fixups to MSIX packages to fix the issues. With this update, you can provide your desired name for the fixups while applying to MSIX packages. Based on how you name the fixups, it will make it easy for you to identify the type of fixups applied to an MSIX package.
• You can import packages from the AdminStudio catalog into the Automated Application Converter (AAC) by connecting to the catalog in AAC. AAC now supports connected to catalogs hosted in Azure SQL. If you have your application catalog hosted on Azure SQL, you will now be able to import packages into AAC to convert to your desired package format.
• Microsoft Updates: AdminStudio now supports the latest version of Windows 11 23H2 for compatibility and ConfigMgr 2309 for publishing applications from AdminStudio.
• The latest version of InstallShield 2023 R2 is included in this release.

For full release, please check here .

AdminStudio 2023 R2 is now live and available for download from the Product and License Center . AdminStudio 2023 R2 includes the below list of new features taking our Package Automation capabilities to the next level:

Different packages may need to be handled differently, depending on their specific characteristics and requirements. For some, a straightforward publish to ConfigMgr with the vendor-supplied silent command line switches might suffice, while others might require wrapping into a PowerShell script for handling installation and customization. In certain cases, conversion to an intunewin format followed by publishing to Intune could be an appropriate approach.

You could configure different automation workflows with appropriate actions to meet your packaging requirements and assign them to the package requests in the Backlog tab while subscribing to automation. An automation workflow is a series of steps that are carried out automatically when a new version of an application becomes available, whether it's from the Package Feed or a Monitored Directory .

Software packages can be categorized within directories in various ways, such as by their source vendors (such as Microsoft or Adobe), installation types (like MSI, EXE, or MSIX), and even by specific departments (e.g., HR, Finance, Engineering). This new version of AdminStudio enables you to configure multiple such directories for monitoring by AdminStudio. You can also assign an automation workflow to each monitored directory. When a new version of a package is dropped in a monitored directory, AdminStudio will pick up the new package to take it through the automation workflow assigned to that directory. Scans for new packages being added to the monitored directory may be scheduled to run on the desired frequency and/or by manual on-demand execution.

Migrating applications from Microsoft ConfigMgr to Intune will be significantly easier now. AdminStudio now allows for the bulk conversion of packages (MSI/EXE/PS1) to Intunewin format. This streamlines the process of importing applications from ConfigMgr, converting them to intunewin format, and publishing them to Intune, all in bulk, for seamless migration to Intune.

When importing an application into an AdminStudio catalog, it typically derives the application name from the installer's product name. Custom naming allows you to override this default behavior, giving you the flexibility to name applications according to your preferences to help you uniquely identify them.

AdminStudio enables you to publish applications from the AdminStudio catalog directly to the VMware Workspace ONE UEM for end-point deployments. You can now configure Data Contingencies for When To Install and Define Criteria for When To Call Install Complete for the applications in the AdminStudio catalog while publishing to Workspace ONE UEM.

Several new PowerShell Cmdlets and REST APIs have been introduced to leverage package automation capabilities of AdminStudio. Please refer to the release notes for the complete list of new cmdlets/APIs.

The latest InstallShield 2023 R1 is bundled into this release of AdminStudio. For information, please see  InstallShield 2023 R1 Release Notes .

To see full release notes, please click here .

The first major release of AdminStudio for 2023 is now live and available for download from the Product and License Center . This new version – AdminStudio 2023, includes the following new features and enhancements:

One frequently asked question from our customers is – When is AdminStudio going cloud? While we would have loved to take AdminStudio to the cloud, its tight integration with the Operating System and heavy file operations are among several technical impediments that do not make it feasible. We understand that many enterprises are looking to migrate from on-prem to cloud solutions and infrastructure as part of their digital transformation and are constantly looking for ways AdminStudio can take advantage of their investments in the cloud.

Recently, we added support for Azure SQL in AdminStudio 2022 R2 to enable hosting our AdminStudio application catalog on Azure SQL. Taking Azure support further, we are happy to announce support for Azure Virtual Machines. You can now configure Azure VMs in the Automated Application Converter (AAC) tool to use them for automated repackaging and conversion operations in support of adopting modern package formats. By using Azure VMs, you can eliminate dependencies on on-prem hypervisors like Microsoft Hyper-V, VMware ESXi, and VMware Workstation.

Over the last few years, AdminStudio has evolved far beyond its origins as a repackaging solution used only during migration projects. AdminStudio evolved to deliver more value in preparing packages for reliable deployment in a variety of ways including importing packages for management in your application catalog, testing packages for compatibility, best practices, conflicts, and Java dependency, and publishing packages to popular endpoint management solutions like Microsoft ConfigMgr, Intune, VMware Workspace One, and more. Today AdminStudio delivers even more with an integrated catalog of third-party applications (Package Feed Module), Package Automation, Backlog Management, and more, making AdminStudio a must-have solution for IT Professionals to meet their daily packaging needs, staying on top of versions of the applications as they are released by vendors.

AdminStudio’s powerful automation features help our users save countless hours thus making them more productive and efficient than ever before. We’ve introduced a “Getting Started” view in AdminStudio that will help expose key capabilities alongside help and video content as a checklist to help you assess the adoption of the value AdminStudio delivers.

If you’ve performed some of these tasks, check them off to inch your overall progress toward a “completed” status. Hover over the listed tasks for a description and click the help and video links to learn more.

You can wrap MSI and EXE packages into PowerShell scripts (.PS1) leveraging the PowerShell App Deploy Toolkit’s (PSADTK) PowerShell wrapper templates within AdminStudio. We’ve worked to improve this support by introducing the following enhancements in AdminStudio 2023:

• While importing packages (MSI, EXE) into a catalog, AdminStudio extracts several application properties from the packages, for example, Product Code, Architecture, etc. These application properties can be added as detection rules or serve to make certain decisions while deploying an application on a device. These application properties and the Package Extended Attributes can now be leveraged in the PowerShell wrapper templates as predefined variables that are automatically filled in with the appropriate value for a package while wrapping it using the PSADTK in AdminStudio. You can use these variables within the script to make decisions, thus making your PowerShell wrapper script more robust.
• You can now convert the PowerShell wrapper scripts to the intunewin package format so you can publish PS1 files to Microsoft Intune.

Intunewin package format is a way to deploy Win32 applications to the endpoints through Microsoft Intune. AdminStudio enables you to convert packages (MSI, EXE) to Intunewin format and publish them to Microsoft Intune. Essentially, Intunewin packages bundle an installer (MSI, EXE) and its install command lines into a single file. When an intunewin package is imported into a catalog, AdminStudio now extracts the content and displays the details of the underlying installer in the Bundled Packages tab. Also, the metadata of the underlying installer is applied to the intunewin package. This enhancement provides you with valuable insights into intunewin packages that will help manage and deploy these packages via Microsoft Intune.

For full release notes, please click here .

While we just had a major release of AdminStudio 2022 one month ago today, the team has been hard at work to squeeze in a few new updates before we close out the year. Today AdminStudio has released a service pack  for that R2 release that adds the following improvements:

• Support for IAM Authentication for FNMS Integration
• Support for Windows 11 - 22H2 and Windows 10 - 22H2
• PowerShell Cmdlets / REST API Enhancement

A new authentication method (IAM) has been introduced to support FNMS/ITAM integrations. Documented here , this update is important to those integrating with FNMS because the AGW authentication gateway will be retired by the end of January 2023. This integration allows for the automated collection of Flexera Identifiers in the FNMS Application Recognition Library (ARL). If you have FNMS or Flexera ITAM and were unaware of this integration, read more here in the AdminStudio documentation .

Always working to keep up with the latest Windows releases, this new update to AdminStudio allows you to test the compatibility of your applications against the latest Windows Operating Systems: Windows 11 22H2 and Windows 10 22H2.

Two new Cmdlet and Rest API enhancements have been introduced to better leverage the AdminStudio backlog capability. Get-ASGetBacklogRequests and New-ASPackageRequest.

• Get-ASGetBacklogRequests – Running this returns a list of the package requests present in the AdminStudio backlog so you can display such as part of a custom integration.
• New-ASPackageRequest – To help you avoid duplicate requests being added to the AdminStudio backlog, a warning message will be returned when a duplicate request is attempted.

For complete release notes, click here .