Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) is a fully developed technology that enterprises use to deliver Win32 applications as virtual applications.

Here’s a little background on App-V: It all started in 2006 when Microsoft acquired Softgrid and released App-V 4. Then, in 2012, Microsoft released version 5.x of App-V, a significant redesign of the entire platform. Since then, it’s been improved with each Service Pack or HotFix release version.

Moreover, Microsoft announced that starting in April 2026, they will discontinue the development of Application Virtualization and recommend migrating to MSIX.

This article will show you how to convert an App-V package into MSIX using MSIX Packaging Tool and Advanced Installer tools.

Diving into MSIX: Converting App-V to MSIX

If you are new to MSIX, we recommend you check out our MSIX Introduction: A comprehensive 24-chapter guide. And to gain more advanced knowledge, download and make sure to read the MSIX Packaging Fundamentals ebook.

Microsoft released MSIX technology in 2018 as an improved version of AppX to make it the new universal package format. During the release of MSIX, Microsoft also announced the MSIX Packaging Tool (MPT) to meet the needs of those who were going to package an application from scratch straight into MSIX format or to repackage an existing desktop application into MSIX format.

Looking on the bright side, you are not alone in your journey toward MSIX.

Converting an App-V package to MSIX is straightforward compared to other installer technologies like MSI, EXE, or Script installers.

You are fast-tracked through the process without the need to capture the files and registries of your application installer as you usually do when repackaging an application.

What makes it easy to convert is that the package’s manifest file is the only one that needs to be converted – all the package resources remain the same.

As you can see, if you repackaged your applications to App-V 5 and now want to migrate them to MSIX, you don’t have to repackage them again. Instead, you can convert your App-V 5 package to MSIX. For that, you can either use MSIX Packaging Tool, the free tool from Microsoft, or any other tool available on the market that gives you this capability.

On the other hand, Advanced Installer gives you the capability not only to convert App-V 5 packages into MSIX but any other type of packages (MSI, App-V 4, AppX). Since we brought up the MSIX Packaging Tool, let’s see how we can convert an App-V 5 package into MSIX.

Read the full article on Advanced Installer’s website by clicking the banner below.