I took on product management for AdminStudio (nearly 4 years ago now, back in September of 2017). All the while, I have been working to strengthen its position as a solution that addresses current, ongoing needs and focusing less on the repackaging capability it is so well known for. It’s strongest differentiator has long been its ability to test installers for conflicts, application compatibility, dependencies, best practices, etc. Then wrapping support was introduced to help packagers to use the PowerShell App Deploy Toolkit, or the older (but very popular) Wise Script scripting language.

The tipping point that drove AdminStudio back to the limelight as a highly relevant solution again, was with the introduction of the Package Feed Module in 2019. With a curated database of third party applications, you could now download setups right within AdminStudio and enjoy validated silent command line parameters to work more efficiently.

Then in 2020, we built-in an automation process that could leverage these details to automatically download, test, convert or wrap, and then publish new versions of applications (and within just a day or two their release). Now it was possible to automate several hundred applications– hands free.

Last week, with the release of AdminStudio 2021 we took it another giant step forward. In the launch video below, I share how we have grown the database of applications covered (already larger than any other solution) and also added uninstall command line details, icon image files, and something I’ve dreamt about a long time: custom installation wizards for all Windows Installer based third party setups.

What’s next? There is always room for improvement. We didn’t squeeze in everything we wanted (never do) and we are now getting real-world feedback from customers as well. In particular, I know we can make automation even more powerful and smooth so we will continue to refine and improve this further over the next release or two.

At this stage, AdminStudio broadens its competitive landscape into the area of Patch Catalogs (the likes of Ivanti Patch or Patch My PC). Not only does it cover dramatically more applications than such competitors, but it was designed from the beginning to address all those applications that will never be part of any patch catalog. I make a more detailed case for this here in this datasheet.