Month: March 2022

The date is almost here! Get ready for InstallAware X15 with the industry’s one and only Context Menu Bridge:

– Three Technology Stacks: Save having to learn COM (IExplorerCommand), MSIX (sparse packages), and Windows Runtime (WinRT APIs) – just to get your right-click extensions working in Windows 11!

– New Application Runtime: Tick a single check-box in the Application Runtimes designer (Context Menu Bridge), paste your existing IContextMenu CLSIDs, and you’re done!

– Context Menu Bridge Plug-In: This new plug-in wraps any number of IContextMenu COM objects inside its own IExplorerCommand COM object at build time. It also creates a sparse MSIX package you may use to install your newly bridged menus.

– (Un)Install Sparse MSIX Package Plug-In: This new plug-in then registers (or removes) the sparse MSIX package produced by the new Context Menu Bridge plug-in above.

– Nothing Hard-Coded: Use either the built-in application runtime, or go under the hood via the new plug-ins above. Either way, save yourself hundreds of hours of time.

Nobody does Windows 11 like InstallAware X15!

New InstallAware X15 is launching on March 25th! Take a look at what we’ve been brewing for you:

– Context Menu Bridge: Those of you who have been with us for a long time will recall our slogan “Windows Installer without Rocket Science”. Well, context menus for the new Windows 11 File Explorer are a new breed of rocket science. Worry not, as our engineers worked day and night to help you cheat fate!

– Zero Recompile: Easily carry over your existing Windows File Explorer context menus (IContextMenu objects) to the new Windows 11 File Explorer (IExplorerCommand objects) with absolutely zero code changes – not even so much as a recompile! Port anything from a single menu to multiple cascaded menus.

– Sparse MSIX Package Generation and (Un)Registration: That’s a mouthful, right? Well, we did warn you this was a bit of rocket science, didn’t we! While context menu registration is no longer as easy as just writing to the registry, we generate the necessary “sparse MSIX packages” for you, and register them too!

– Native Access to the Top Menu: The end-result? All your legacy context menu items now show on the new Windows 11 File Explorer at the top level, without your end-users having to click that pesky “Show more options” item, or having to use Windows 11 hacks disabling the new context menu altogether.

– Nothing Left Behind: Even if your existing menus have their own submenus, we flatten them out for you. Are they already grouped under a single parent menu item? We take care of that too. Are they invoked for only particular file types? Magically works, no gripes! Of course, we launch your native actions upon clicks.

Only InstallAware X15 ports 100% of your existing right-click menus, preserving 100% of your originally coded dynamic menu item captions and invocation behavior; seamlessly working around any new limitations introduced by Windows 11’s new IExplorerCommand based implementation approach.

Remember, at InstallAware – we’re all about taking the rocket science out of your work – letting you concentrate on the actual fun bits for a change!