PsfTooling is the free tool to work in conjunction with the Microsoft MSIX Packaging Tool. [Download_Page]
Release 6.11 Notes
This release includes the TMurgent branch of the PSF Version 2025.01.02. The previous version was from April so there is a lot in here just from the PSF. The relevant release notes for the PSF include the following:
- New Psf v2025.01.02 – Confessions of a Guru
- What’s new in PSF v2024.10.26?
- New addition to the PSF: PsfFtaCom – Confessions of a Guru
Some of the PSF changes impact PSF by adding new features that we are now exposing in PsfTooling.
PreventMultipleInstances
This is a new feature of the PsfLauncher. It appears in PsfTooling inside the PsfLauncher configuration as seen here:
Most apps do not need this feature, but it was requested by a customer for one of their in-house applications. When selected, it prevents a second copy of the application from being started while another copy is already running IN THE SAME USER SESSION.
The user gets a dialog box with the explanation.
DeletionMarkers
This is something Microsoft added to their fork of the PSF as a new rule for RegLegacyFixup and we ported it over in case someone started with that version of the PSF and wanted to convert over. It has very limited use, and the one use case we know of is handled much easier with the next feature anyway.
The feature allows you to specify a RegEx pattern for machine registry calls for keys and values. When matched, the call will hide any such entry either in the virtual registry of the package or on the native system. The big use case is for Java, where you need the app to use an old version of Java but you have a newer version installed on the system natively.
JavaBlocker
This is a new special rule for RegLegacyFixup that does the Java Blocking of any native version by just specifying the version of Java present in your package. Essentially this is only for Java but does the same thing as the nasty looking RegEx pattern that you’d have to create if you used DeletionMarker.
This release is available immediately from the TMurgent site and will later be updated to Microsoft store. PsfTooling is a free community tool.
An up-to-date 4.5-minute video showing how to use it is below:
We remind you that PsfTooling is limited in what it can fix by the Microsoft MSIX Packaging Tool, which is used to generate the final package. PsfTooling is estimated to improve application compatibility from roughly 30% without it to roughly 60% with it. But this pales to using our advanced (but licensed) TMEditX which scored 82% in this year’s testing.
