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71-459: Before the introduction of Microsoft Store (then named Windows Store), Microsoft encouraged third parties to use Windows Installer as the basis for installation frameworks, so that they synchronize correctly with other installers and keep the internal database of installed products consistent. Important features such as rollback and versioning depend on a consistent internal database for reliable operation. Furthermore, Windows Installer facilitates

142-445: A bootable CD , DVD , USB flash drive or loaded over the network as with thin clients . Examples are AmigaOS 4.0, various Linux distributions , MorphOS or Mac OS versions 1.0 through 9.0. (See live CD and live USB .) Finally, web applications , which run inside a web browser , do not need installation. A custom installation allows the installer to choose to select components or parts that are required to be installed. This

213-413: A computer program (including device drivers and plugins ), is the act of making the program ready for execution . Installation refers to the particular configuration of software or hardware with a view to making it usable with the computer. A soft or digital copy of the piece of software (program) is needed to install it. There are different processes of installing a piece of software (program). Because

284-443: A 30% cut of app sales until it reached US$ 25,000 in revenue, after which the cut dropped to 20%. On January 1, 2015, the reduction in cut at $ 25,000 was removed, and Microsoft takes a 30% cut of all app purchases, regardless of overall sales. As of August 1, 2021, Microsoft only takes a 12% cut of app sales. Third-party transactions are also allowed, of which Microsoft does not take a cut. In 2015, over 669,000 apps were available on

355-470: A Web-based storefront called "Microsoft Store". Microsoft first announced Windows Store, a digital distribution service for Windows at its presentation during the Build developer conference on September 13, 2011. Further details announced during the conference revealed that the store would be able to hold listings for both certified traditional Windows apps, as well as what were called "Metro-style apps" at

426-560: A complete uninstallation. Some computer programs can be executed by simply copying them into a folder stored on a computer and executing them. Other programs are supplied in a form unsuitable for immediate execution and therefore need an installation procedure. Once installed, the program can be executed again and again, without the need to reinstall before each execution. Common operations performed during software installations include: These operations may require some charges or be free of charge. In case of payment, installation costs means

497-604: A desire to also sell games on competing storefronts such as Steam . The new Xbox app subsequently became the main frontend for PC games available via Microsoft Store, and also integrates subscription service PC Game Pass . Movies and television shows are available for purchase or rental, depending on availability. Content can be played on the Microsoft Movies & TV app (available for Windows 10, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and Xbox X/S), or Xbox Video app (available for Windows 8/RT PCs and tablets, and Windows Phone 8). In

568-413: A developer portal with which developers can interact. Microsoft takes 5–15% of the sale price for apps and 30% on Xbox games. Prior to January 1, 2015, this cut was reduced to 20% after the developer's profits reached $ 25,000. In 2021, 669,000 apps were available in the store. Categories containing the largest number of apps are "Books and Reference", "Education", "Entertainment", and "Games". The majority of

639-526: A hybrid installation engine, whereby a setup may be executed using either the Windows Installer APIs, or directly through InstallAware's native code setup engine. This hybrid engine also provides the capability to switch installation modes at runtime. macOS includes Installer , a native package manager . macOS also includes a separate software updating application, Software Update , that only supports Apple and system software. Included in

710-750: A minimum level of tools required to create installers using Windows Installer in the freely available Windows SDK , instead focusing on the API to allow developers and third parties to leverage it in creating custom installers. Third party tools may supporting create installers using this API to speed the process. Examples include InstallShield ( Flexera Software ) and WiX ( Outercurve Foundation ). Installation authoring tools that do not rely on Windows Installer include Wise Installation Studio ( Wise Solutions, Inc. ), Installer VISE (MindVision Software), Visual Installer (SamLogic), NSIS , Clickteam , InnoSetup and InstallSimple. InstallAware for Windows Installer features

781-408: A single feature. More complex installers may display a "custom setup" dialog box, from which the user can select which features to install or remove. The package author defines the product features. A word processor , for example, might place the program's core file into one feature, and the program's help files, optional spelling checker and stationery modules into additional features. A component

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852-486: A software program can be used to deploy a program on networks in educational institutions, including primary and secondary education and universities, in addition to business, government, and corporate networks. The person managing the silent installation can choose to add a desktop shortcut, for example, to silently install Google Drive with a desktop shortcut : Installation that is performed without user interaction during its progress or with no user present at all. One of

923-451: A technique called bootstrapping is used. The common pattern for this is to use small executable files which update the installer and starts the real installation after the update. This small executable is called bootstrapper. Sometimes the bootstrapper installs other prerequisites for the software during the bootstrapping process too. Cross-platform installer builders produce installers that run on Windows, macOS and Linux . An example

994-466: A unified distribution point for apps, console games , and digital videos . Digital music was included until the end of 2017, and E-books were included until 2019. As with other similar platforms, such as the Google Play and Mac App Store , Microsoft Store is curated, and apps must be certified for compatibility and content. In addition to the user-facing Microsoft Store client, the store has

1065-410: A user who attend it to make choices, such as accepting or declining an end-user license agreement (EULA), specifying preferences such as the installation location, supplying passwords or assisting in product activation . In graphical environments, installers that offer a wizard-based interface are common. Attended installers may ask users to help mitigate the errors. For instance, if the disk in which

1136-410: A user's command. For instance, a system administrator willing to install a later version of a computer program that is being used can schedule that installation to occur when that program is not running. An operating system may automatically install a device driver for a device that the user connects. (See plug and play .) Malware may also be installed automatically. For example, the infamous Con ficker

1207-521: A version intended for installation over a network. An installation program or installer is a computer program that installs files, such as applications , drivers , or other software , onto a computer. Some installers are specifically made to install the files they contain; other installers are general-purpose and work by reading the contents of the software package to be installed. They exist both as "standalone installer" (or "offline installer") & "web installer" (or "online installer"), where

1278-464: Is InstallAnywhere by Flexera Software , which is based on Java . An instance of native code is InstallAware Multi Platform by InstallAware Software, featuring build toolchains and a setup engine that runs without dependencies; it can also switch to console mode if a graphical user interface (GUI) cannot be displayed on Linux. Windows NT family includes an installation API and an associated service called Windows Installer . Microsoft provides

1349-505: Is a product . A product is identified by a unique GUID (the ProductCode property) providing an authoritative identity throughout the world. The GUID, in combination with the version number (ProductVersion property), allows for release management of the product's files and registry keys. A package includes the package logic and other metadata that relates to how the package executes when running. For example, changing an EXE file in

1420-435: Is assumed that there is no user to help mitigate errors. For instance, if the installation medium was faulty, the installer should fail the installation, as there is no user to fix the fault or replace the medium. Unattended installers may record errors in a computer log for later review. Installation performed without using a computer monitor connected. In attended forms of headless installation, another machine connects to

1491-520: Is not of much use, but in bigger organizations where thousands of users work, deploying the applications becomes a typical task and for that reason silent installation is performed so that the application is installed in the background without affecting the work of the user. Silent parameters can vary from software to software; if a software/application has silent parameters, it can be checked by " <software.exe> /? " or " <software.exe> /help " or " <software.exe> -help ". Silently installing

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1562-421: Is not the same as "unattended installation" (see below): All silent installations are unattended but not all unattended installations are silent. The reason behind a silent installation may be convenience or subterfuge. Malware and viruses can be installed silently when a person clicks on a link while working at a business they think is real but is a hacker's program download. For normal users silent installation

1633-409: Is sometimes preferred as opposed to installing the full suite of software components. Some situations that require the need for a custom install might be where only the basic components are required which are smaller in size instead of the full components which may take up too much hard drive space. On Windows systems, this is the most common form of installation. An installation process usually needs

1704-411: Is the basic unit of a product. Each component is treated by Windows Installer as a unit. The installer cannot install just part of a component. Components can contain program files , folders , COM components, registry keys, and shortcuts . The user does not directly interact with components. Components are identified globally by GUIDs; thus the same component can be shared among several features of

1775-593: The App-V system to allow sandboxing . In February 2018, Microsoft announced that Progressive Web Apps would begin to be available in the Microsoft Store, and Microsoft would automatically add selected quality progressive web apps through the Bing crawler or allow developers to submit Progressive Web Apps to the Microsoft Store. Starting from Windows 10 version 1803, fonts can be downloaded and installed from

1846-803: The Dock as of 10.6.6, and also in the Apple menu , the Mac App Store shares many attributes with the successful App Store for iOS devices, such as a similar app approval process, the use of Apple ID for purchases, and automatic installation and updating. Although the App Store is Apple's preferred delivery method for macOS apps, previously purchased licenses cannot be transferred to the Mac App Store for downloading or automatic updating. Instead of an installer, many macOS applications distributed outside

1917-519: The EdgeHTML -based Microsoft Edge . The ability to open ePub e-books was removed during the shift to the Chromium -based Microsoft Edge. On April 2, 2019, Microsoft announced that the sale of e-books on the Microsoft Store had ceased. Due to DRM licenses that would not be renewed, all books became inaccessible by July 2019, and Microsoft automatically refunded all users that had purchased books via

1988-679: The Windows 8.1 Update reached the end of its extended support on January 10, 2023, excluding some Embedded editions, as well its server equivalent, Windows Server 2012 R2 . Windows 10 was released with an updated version of the Windows Store, which merged Microsoft's other distribution platforms ( Windows Marketplace , Windows Phone Store , Xbox Video and Xbox Music ) into a unified store front for Windows 10 on all platforms, offering apps, games, music, film, TV series, themes, and ebooks. In June 2017, Spotify became available in

2059-514: The Windows Store ) is a digital distribution platform operated by Microsoft . It was created as an app store for Windows 8 as the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform apps . With Windows 10 1803 , Microsoft merged its other distribution platforms ( Windows Marketplace , Windows Phone Store , Xbox Music , Xbox Video , Xbox Store , and a web storefront also known as "Microsoft Store") into Microsoft Store, making it

2130-459: The classic Mac OS , Atari TOS and AmigaOS . As computing environments grew more complex and fixed hard drives replaced floppy disks , the need for tangible installation presented itself. For example Commodore released the Installer for Amiga . The modern applications that can be run without going through formal process of installation and, in particular, do not require modifications of

2201-412: The operating system , are sometimes referred to as zero-install . Zero-install can be achieved through multiple means: The Linux distribution GoboLinux takes a similar approach (each applications gets its own directory structure), but still introduces the side-effects of the traditional Linux installation to maintain the backward compatibility with the standard Linux directory layout. Isolation of

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2272-405: The principle of least privilege by performing software installations by proxy for unprivileged users. A package describes the installation of one or more full products and is universally identified by a GUID . A product is made up of components , grouped into features . Windows Installer does not handle dependencies between products. A single, installed, working program (or set of programs)

2343-482: The Mac App Store use an Apple Disk Image (.dmg file) that contains an application bundle to be dragged and dropped into the Applications folder; those applications are described as drag-install applications. These often feature prominent installation instructions and a shortcut to the Applications folder; that style of drag-install application was invented and published by Iris Artin (formerly Ben Artin) during

2414-404: The Microsoft Store. In Windows 11 , Microsoft Store received an updated user interface, and a new pop-up designed to handle installation links from websites. Microsoft also announced a number of changes to its policies for application submissions to improve flexibility and make the store more "open", including supporting "any kind of app, regardless of app framework and packaging technology", and

2485-550: The OS from any changes required by the application can also be achieved through the application virtualization tools, like VMware ThinApp , Microsoft App-V , InstallFree Bridge. A class of modern applications that do not need installation and are located on a detachable storage device are known as portable applications , as they may be moved around onto different computers and run. Similarly, there are live operating systems , which do not need installation and can be run directly from

2556-607: The United States, a Microsoft account can be linked to the Movies Anywhere digital locker service (separate registration required), which allows purchased content to be played on other platforms (e.g. MacOS, Android, iOS). Microsoft Movies & TV is currently available in the following 21 countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,

2627-540: The United States, and the United Kingdom. The purchase of TV shows is not currently supported in Belgium. On October 2, 2017, Microsoft announced that the sale of digital music on the Microsoft Store would cease on December 31 after the discontinuation of Groove Music Pass. Users were able to transfer their music to Spotify until January 31, 2018. Books bought from the Microsoft Store were formerly accessible on

2698-550: The Windows Store. In September 2017, Microsoft began to re-brand Windows Store as Microsoft Store, with a new icon carrying the Microsoft logo. Xbox Store was merged into this new version of the platform. This is in line with Microsoft's platform convergence strategy on all Windows 10 -based operating systems. Web apps and traditional desktop software can be packaged for distribution on Windows Store. Desktop software distributed through Windows Store are packaged using

2769-511: The ability for apps to automatically update was also added. Windows 8.1 Update also introduced other notable presentation changes, including increasing the top app lists to return 1000 apps instead of 100 apps, a "picks for you" section, and changing the default sorting for reviews to be by "most popular". Updates to apps published on the Store after June 30, 2023, are no longer available to Windows 8.1 . Per Microsoft lifecycle policies,

2840-559: The ability for developers to freely use first- or third-party payment platforms (in non-game software only) rather than those provided by Microsoft. The Microsoft Store is not installed by default in Windows Server 2012 or later versions of Windows Server. Apps that would normally be available in the Store can be installed through sideloading . Microsoft Store is the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps to users. Sideloading apps from outside

2911-469: The app developers have one app. Microsoft previously maintained a similar digital distribution system for software known as Windows Marketplace , which allowed customers to purchase software online. The marketplace tracked product keys and licenses, allowing users to retrieve their purchases when switching computers. Windows Marketplace was discontinued in November 2008. At this point, Microsoft opened

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2982-533: The case of paid apps, refunds may be issued when this is done. Microsoft initially banned PEGI "18"-rated content from the store in Europe. However, critics noted that this made the content policies stricter than intended, as some PEGI 18-rated games are rated "Mature" on the U.S. ESRB system, which is the next lowest before its highest rating, "Adults Only". The guidelines were amended in December 2012 to remove

3053-458: The component's destination folder is taken to be the key path. When an MSI-based program is launched, Windows Installer checks the existence of key paths. If there is a mismatch between the current system state and the value specified in the MSI package (e.g., a key file is missing), the related feature is re-installed. This process is known as self-healing or self-repair . No two components should use

3124-443: The computer program is being installed was full, the installer may ask the user to specify another target path or clear enough space in the disk. A common misconception is unarchivation, which is not considered an installation action because it does not include user choices, such as accepting or declining EULA. A "silent installation" is an installation that does not display messages or windows during its progress. "Silent installation"

3195-486: The costs connected and relevant to or incurred as a result of installing the drivers or the equipment in the customers' premises. Some installers may attempt to trick users into installing junkware such as various forms of adware , toolbars , trialware or software of partnering companies. To prevent this, extra caution on what exactly is being asked to be installed is needed. The installation of additional software then can simply be skipped or unchecked (this may require

3266-453: The development of Fetch 5 and subsequently gained wide adoption. Commercial applications for macOS may also use a third-party installer, such as the Mac version of Installer VISE (MindVision Software) or InstallerMaker ( StuffIt ). A system installer is the software that is used to set up and install an operating system onto a device. Examples of Linux system installers: Another example

3337-436: The discrepancy. On October 8, 2020, Microsoft announced a commitment to ten "principles" of fairness to developers in the operation of the Microsoft Store. These include transparency over its rules, practices, and Windows' "interoperability interfaces", not preventing competing application storefronts to run on Windows, charging developers "reasonable fees" and not "forc[ing]" them to include in-app purchases, allowing access to

3408-425: The former allows for offline installation as it contains all installation files, whereas the latter needs to download files necessary for installation from the web at the time of installation. The differences between a package management system and an installer are: During an installation of a computer program , it is sometimes necessary to update the installer or package manager itself. To make this possible,

3479-505: The interfering elements are absent, a clean installation may succeed where an unclean installation may fail or may take significantly longer. Network installation, shortened net install, is an installation of a program from a shared network resource that may be done by installing a minimal system before proceeding to download further packages over the network. This may simply be a copy of the original media but software publishers which offer site licenses for institutional customers may provide

3550-482: The jurisdiction, religion or norms of the target market. They may also not encourage, facilitate or glamorize violence, drugs, tobacco, alcohol and weapons. Video game console emulators that are "primarily gaming experiences or target Xbox One" and third-party web browsers that use their own layout engines , are prohibited on Microsoft Store. Microsoft has indicated that it can remotely disable or remove apps from end-user systems for security or legal reasons; in

3621-399: The leading reason for the cold reception of the store. Phil Spencer , head of Microsoft's gaming division, has also opined that Microsoft Store "sucks". As a result, Office was removed as an installable app from the store, and made to redirect to its website. Malware had also made their way into the store masquerading as popular games. InstallAware Installation (or setup ) of

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3692-414: The local computer for easier access by the operating system, creating necessary directories, registering environment variables , providing a separate program for un-installation etc. Because code is generally copied/generated in multiple locations, uninstallation usually involves more than just erasing the program folder. For example, registry files and other system code may need to be modified or deleted for

3763-410: The process varies for each program and each computer, programs (including operating systems ) often come with an installer , a specialised program responsible for doing whatever is needed (see below) for the installation. Installation may be part of a larger software deployment process. Installation typically involves code (program) being copied/generated from the installation files to new files on

3834-532: The product may require the ProductCode or ProductVersion to be changed for the release management. However, merely changing or adding a launch condition (with the product remaining exactly the same as the previous version) would still require the PackageCode to change for release management of the MSI file itself. A feature is a hierarchical group of components. A feature may contain any number of components and other sub-features. Smaller packages can consist of

3905-528: The reasons to use this approach is to automate the installation of a large number of systems. An unattended installation either does not require the user to supply anything or has received all necessary input prior to the start of installation. Such input may be in the form of command line switches or an answer file , a file that contains all the necessary parameters. Windows XP and most Linux distributions are examples of operating systems that can be installed with an answer file. In unattended installation, it

3976-567: The same key path. Creating an installer package for a new application is not trivial. It is necessary to specify which files must be installed, to where and with what registry keys. Any non-standard operations can be done using Custom Actions, which are typically developed in DLLs . There are a number of commercial and freeware products to assist in creating MSI packages, including Visual Studio (natively up to VS 2010, with an extension on newer VS versions), InstallShield and WiX . To varying degrees,

4047-399: The same package or multiple packages, ideally through the use of Merge Modules . A key path is a specific file, registry key, or ODBC data source that the package author specifies as critical for a given component. Because a file is the most common type of key path, the term key file is commonly used. A component can contain at most one key path; if a component has no explicit key path,

4118-626: The same standards as others on the store. The announcement came in the wake of a lawsuits against Apple, Inc. and Google LLC by Epic Games over alleged anticompetitive practices conducted by their own application stores. With the release of Windows 11, Microsoft announced that it would not require software (excluding games) distributed via Microsoft Store to use its own payment platforms, and that it will also allow third-party storefronts (such as Amazon Appstore —which will be used for its Android app support, and Epic Games Store ) to offer their clients for download via Microsoft Store. In addition to

4189-415: The service. Similar to Windows Phone Store , Microsoft Store is regulated by Microsoft. Applicants must obtain Microsoft's approval before their app becomes available on the store. These apps may not contain, support or approve, gratuitous profanity, obscenity, pornography, discrimination, defamation, or politically offensive content. They may also not contain contents that are forbidden by or offensive to

4260-583: The start of installation can be changed or configured by the setup engineer developing a new installer. There is a limited language of buttons, text fields and labels which can be arranged in a sequence of dialogue boxes. An installer package should be capable of running without any UI, for what is called "unattended installation". Microsoft provides a set of Internal Consistency Evaluators (ICE) that can be used to detect potential problems with an MSI database. The ICE rules are combined into CUB files, which are stripped-down MSI files containing custom actions that test

4331-628: The store after July 1, 2019, are no longer available to Windows 8 RTM users. Per Microsoft lifecycle policies, the RTM version of Windows 8 has been unsupported since January 12, 2016, excluding some Embedded editions, as well its server equivalent, Windows Server 2012 . An updated version of Windows Store was introduced in Windows ;8.1 . Its home page was remodeled to display apps in focused categories (such as popular, recommended, top free and paid, and special offers) with expanded details, while

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4402-470: The store by any developer as long as their software meets "objective standards and requirements", not blocking apps based on their business model, how it delivers its services, or how it processes payments, not impeding developers from "communicating directly with their users through their apps for legitimate business purposes", not using private data from the store to influence the development of competing for software by Microsoft, and holding its own software to

4473-540: The store is supported on Windows 10 on an opt-in basis, but Windows 8 only allows sideloading to be enabled if the device is running the Enterprise edition of Windows 8 on a domain . Sideloading on Windows RT , Windows 8 Pro, and on Windows 8 Enterprise computers without a domain affiliation, requires the purchase of additional licenses through volume licensing . Individual developers are able to register for US$ 19 and companies for US$ 99. Initially, Microsoft took

4544-847: The store, including apps for Windows NT , Windows Phone , and UWP apps, which work on both platforms. Categories containing the largest number of apps are "Games", "Entertainment", "Books and Reference", and "Education". The majority of the app developers have one app. Both free and paid apps can be distributed through Microsoft Store, with paid apps ranging in cost from US$ 0.99 to $ 999.99. Developers from 120 countries can submit apps to Microsoft Store. Apps may support any of 109 languages, as long as they support one of 12 app certification languages. From 2016 to 2019, most Microsoft Studios games ported to PC were distributed exclusively via Microsoft Store. Microsoft later abandoned this strategy in May 2019, amid criticism of limitations faced by UWP-based games, and

4615-555: The target MSI database's contents for validation warnings and errors. ICE validation can be performed with the Platform SDK tools Orca and msival2, or with validation tools that ship with the various authoring environments. For example, some of the ICE rules are: Addressing ICE validation warnings and errors is an important step in the release process. Office XP Microsoft Store The Microsoft Store (formerly known as

4686-450: The target machine (for instance, via a local area network ) and takes over the display output. Since a headless installation does not need a user at the location of the target computer, unattended headless installers may be used to install a program on multiple machines at the same time. An installation process that runs on a preset time or when a predefined condition transpires, as opposed to an installation process that starts explicitly on

4757-551: The time: tightly- sandboxed software based on Microsoft design guidelines that are constantly monitored for quality and compliance. For consumers, Windows Store is intended to be the only way to obtain Metro-style apps. While announced alongside the "Developer Preview" release of Windows 8 , Windows Store itself did not become available until the "Consumer Preview", released in February 2012. Updates to apps published on

4828-556: The user facing Microsoft Store client, the store also has a developer portal with which developers can interact. The Windows developer portal has the following sections for each app: Microsoft Store provides developer tools for tracking apps in the store. The dashboard also presents a detailed breakdown of users by market, age, and region, as well as charts on the number of downloads, purchases, and average time spent in an app. Microsoft Store has widely received negative reviews since its inception. Unavailability of popular apps has been

4899-575: The user interface and behavior may be configured for use in less common situations such as unattended installation. Once prepared, an installer package is "compiled" by reading the instructions and files from the developer's local machine, and creating the .msi file. Windows Installer may be slower than native code installation technologies, such as InstallAware , due to the overhead of component registration and rollback support, which often involves generating tens of thousands of registry keys and temporary files. The user interface (dialog boxes) presented at

4970-471: The user to use the "custom", "detailed" or "expert" version of the installation procedure). Such malicious conduct is not necessarily a decision by the software developers or their company but can also be an issue of external installers such as the Download.com installer by CNET . As mentioned earlier, some computer programs need no installation. This was once usual for many programs which run on DOS ,

5041-417: Was installed when the user plugged an infected device to their computer. A clean installation is one that is done in the absence of any interfering elements such as old versions of the computer program being installed or leftovers from a previous installation. In particular, the clean installation of an operating system is an installation in which the target disk partition is erased before installation. Since

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