PACE Suite 4.7: Simplify Registry Management in Application Packaging

We are proud to present PACE Suite 4.7 – our latest release, which takes one of the particularly complex areas of application packaging – working with the registry – and makes it easier to succeed with your packaging tasks, even for newcomers to this field. This release brings a new approach to reviewing and managing registry keys and values with the help of an entirely new Registry tab in MSI Editor. We made a lot of improvements to the UI to ensure it stays user-friendly, no matter how hard your current task is. Read on to discover every improvement PACE Suite 4.7 brings!

New Registry tab in MSI Editor

Enjoy a user-friendly tree list view on the Registry tab and find all registry keys and values from both “Registry” and “RemoveRegistry” tables. This view makes it easier to see all contents of all keys – either check everything that is in your package or use a high-level overview. In the tree list, you can immediately see registry value’s details such as type, value itself, and Component to which this value is assigned. All added, modified, or removed resources are highlighted with colours, and you can quickly undo any of those changes. Using the Registry tab, you can create a new key, value and value/key removal items (RemoveRegistry).

Error detection right when it’s most needed

The tree list has a vast amount of validation rules so you can fix errors before testing or building your package. For instance, it checks if a value matches all the limitations and rules of the specified value type; if there are keys, which begin or end, or contain extra backslashes (\). Another example – the tree list even checks if the component, associated with the registry value, does not contain both per-user and per-machine resources, as it is against the packaging best practices and rules.The number of validation errors is calculated and displayed in the status bar below the tree list so you will not miss any errors.

Rich data for every resource

In MSI Editor, Registry tab has four types of resources – Hives (roots), registry keys, registry values, and value/key removal items –each of which has its own Details pane. For instance, for registry key the Details pane shows its name, parent key, root, and other relevant details and key options. For registry values, you can review their values in parsed (transformed) view and in their original, raw MSI format.You can also edit all above-mentioned details for each resource in their respective Property windows.For instance, for a registry value, you can change identifier, name, value type, value itself, key, where this value is located, root and re-assign this value to another component from the list. For creating a Default key value, or securing a key creation and/or removal, simply select a respective option from the Value processing method field.

Redesigned permissions management

MSI Editor now has a new permission management property, and you can change permissions for registry keys on the Registry tab.You can also quickly enable or disable permissions for any key.

“Move to” feature

Now, you can move any resource to a new place in just one click and without any leftovers.Moving has an advanced mechanism that checks existing permission settings of the keys, which will be merged, and informs you in advance about potential issues. Easily take one value or key with values and subkeys and place it in a new location with one click.

Other Improvements

MSI Editor

• A new approach to creating patch packages, which changes the way files are extracted from MSI before creating a patch. We developed our solution that offers better stability than the standard tool, built into the operating systems, so now you can always get a working patch package with PACE Suite.
• Many enhancements to the internal mechanisms of MSI Editor that boosted the overall speed of editing your packages.

MSI Generator

You can find detailed description of the new features in PACE Suite 4.7 Release Notes. Don’t forget to check our PACE Suite User Manual – your go-to guide to software packaging with PACE Suite.