About Add-Ins and MSI

[jean-michel_legoff]

Hello,

I was wondering why "Add-ins" are distributed as "MSI"...

Or is it possible to run a MSI without Admin credentials?

As Fusion 360 is installed in the "User" environment, the User's profile don't need "admin credentials".
But the issue remains for add-ins...
For any reason, MSI installers need admin privilege to run, and so it's a little bit more difficult to deploy add-ins in a corporate environment.

Could it be possible to have another way to install such add-ins?

Many Thanks

[BrianEkins]

The reason add-ins are distributed by the App Store as MSI's is because the person that wrote the utility to create the Windows installers for the app store decided to use MSI's. I don't know if the decision was based on some technical reasons or if it was just because they were more familiar with creating MSI's. The App Store continues to use that same utility today to build installers for the apps when the developer doesn't supply their own installer.

They don't have to done using MSI. For example, for my App, Nifty Dogbone, I create my own installer and provide it to the App Store. It is delivered as an EXE file. I'm using Inno Setup to create my installer and that's the format it creates.

I also did a quick bit of searching and I don't believe MSI has to require admin privileges. I think it depends on how the installer is configured and where it tries to install files. The same is true for an EXE installer. As you said, for Fusion, the installer doesn't need admin privileges since it only installs within user-accessible locations.