The Package Support Framework (PSF) was originally a Microsoft open-source project to help Win32/DotNet applications run when inside an MSIX Container. TMurgent has taken up the support for the PSF in our own fork here on GitHub.
Version V.2025.05.11 of the PSF is complete. The updates reflect a couple of key issues detected while getting TMEditX/PsfTooling releases ready that were using the previous version.
New in this release:
- Changes in PsfLauncher to handle packages that have shortcuts to non-executable files, to handle the condition where at the target system that file type does not contain a default program. The launcher will now detect this and rather than use the PowerShell script wrapper to run a command inside the container, it will call the system utility OpenWith.exe, outside of the container, to prompt the user to pick a program to run. That program will run either outside the container, or if the selected program is part of a packaged app, it will run inside the container of the packaged app.
- Changes in MfrFixup to better handle file requests that are directories best left to InstalledLocationVirtualization to handle. Also improved the logic to determine that the file call is a directory based on alternative API styles used by certain apps.
- Changes in Debug Logging to include which fixup module caused the entry..
This version of the PSF is scheduled to be included in version 5.7 of TMEditX and 6.13 of PsfTooling. Check with other vendors that include the PSF for their release schedule. The release is found at Release v.2025.05.11 · TimMangan/MSIX-PackageSupportFramework
For those unaware, PSF stands for Package Support Framework, an open-source utility that I contribute to for helping traditional Win32 and DotNet applications run inside the MSIX packaging container. This article contains information regarding new contributions.
