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General Package Info

These properties describe your application. They are shared between MSI and MSIX – set them once in the common section and both outputs inherit them.

Properties​

packageName · required​

The product name. Used as the MSI ProductName and the MSIX display name.

"packageName": "My Application Name"

publisher · required​

The true publisher or company name of the application.

"publisher": "My Company Name Ltd."

Always use the real, human-readable publisher name – the actual company or person that publishes the software. MPDEV handles the correct format conversion internally for both MSI and MSIX builds, including generating the required Distinguished Name for MSIX manifests.

warning

Do NOT use Distinguished Name format (e.g. CN=..., O=..., C=...) here. Simply write the publisher name as it should appear to users.

version · required​

The version of your application in Major.Minor.Build.Revision format. Major must be greater than 0.

  • Common / MSI – For MSI packages it is recommended to omit Revision as it does not work during upgrades. MSI limits: Major ≤ 255, Minor ≤ 255, Build ≤ 65,535.
  • MSIX – all four parts are required.
"version": "1.0.0"

platform · required​

The architecture of your installer.

"platform": "x64"

Allowed values: x86, x64, Arm, Arm64, Neutral.

installDir · required​

The absolute path where your application files will be installed. Use environment variables for standard Windows locations. Must be a valid absolute path (no illegal characters); existence on disk is not checked.

"installDir": "%ProgramFiles%\\My Application"

icon · required​

Source path of the icon displayed during install/uninstall. Supports .ico, .png, .exe, or .dll files. For exe/dll files, append ,index to pick a specific icon:

"icon": "Installer Files\\My App Icon.ico"
"icon": "MyApp.exe,2"

Putting it all together​

Here is what the top of your JSON project looks like with output configuration and general package info filled in:

{
  "$schema": "https://www.masterpackager.com/support-master-packager-dev/mpdev-schema.json",

  "outputTypes": ["msi", "msix"],
  "outputDirectory": "output",
  "compressionLevel": "Normal",

  "packageName": "My Application Name",
  "publisher": "My Company Name Ltd.",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "platform": "x64",
  "installDir": "%ProgramFiles%\\My Application",
  "icon": "Installer Files\\My App Icon.ico"
}

This is the foundation every MPDEV project starts with. The next step is adding the actual content of your installer – files, shortcuts, registry entries, and more.