The Windows Application Migration and Packaging Handbook

What this handbook helps you decide

Decide the package route before the migration dates are committed, not after the first failure.

An application migration rarely stalls on the packaging tool. It stalls when a list of application names turns out not to be the estate: the same product appears three times under different owners, the installer source cannot be found, and the vendor's supported route was never checked. The dates are already in the plan by then.

This handbook starts with the assessment, because the route decision depends on it. It builds one record around the application outcome rather than the technology it came from, segments the estate by the decision to be made, and assesses source, behaviour and target together before anyone chooses between MSIX, MSI, PSADT or an Intune ready route.

The last chapter is about release rather than packaging: test, acceptance, signing, rollback, wave gates and the moment an application becomes somebody's to support. Every illustrative count and effort assumption is meant to be replaced with your own source, vendor, test and service evidence.

• Why an application list is not yet an estate, and what a usable application record contains.
• How to segment applications by the decision to be made rather than by the technology they came from.
• How to assess source, behaviour and target together so the route decision holds.
• Where MSIX, MSI, PSADT and Intune ready delivery each remain supportable.
• What test, acceptance, release and rollback evidence a wave gate needs.
• How to hand each release into named service ownership instead of leaving it with the packaging team.