[mike_hearn]

MSIX can be made to work in that context. We've done it, although it required writing our own installer EXE stub that invokes the package management API rather than using Microsoft's own "App Installer" app, and doing lots of remote diagnosis to solve the mysterious bugs you were hitting. I would indeed not recommend anyone try to use it with Microsoft's own tooling.

Still, when you finally make it work you get a lot of benefits. MSI is clearly dead end tech which is why so many MSIs are just installer EXEs wrapped in the file format. It doesn't have any clear path to modern essentials like online updates, keeping the OS clean, sandboxing and so on. If you were on the Windows team, what would you say the future was?

For enterprise environments it's actually somewhat the opposite: MSIX packages can be installed without admin privileges due to their declarative nature, and it's very easy for admins to provision MSIXs to Active Directory groups because they don't have to do any repackaging work. Yes, some admins have hacked Windows to stop it working because when MS launched the Store they didn't provide any way for admins to opt out, but these days they have the knobs they need. Also, because they're just zips you can always just unzip them into your home directory to get at the app inside. It won't auto update that way, but as long as EXEs can run from the home dir it can work.

Products like Office and Visual Studio have entire teams devoted to nothing but their installers, which is clearly going too far in the opposite direction. Most products won't want to do that.