When you want to deploy any application using Intune, you have to choose from different deployment options available from Microsoft Intune admin center. If you want to deploy MSI Installer based application then you can choose Line of business app option.
There is another method for app deployment in Intune which is called as Windows app (Win32) app deployment method. This method is used for deployment of .exe applications or you can even use Win32 method for deployment of MSI files. If you have a simple MSI to deploy, I would prefer Line-of-business app option.
Why do you need to create IntuneWin file
When you want to deploy any .exe based applications or Any complex app which may require custom scripts for installation, you can use Windows app (Win32) deployment method in Intune. This method requires your setup / installation files to be wrapped into .INTUNEWIN format.
Please note that for deployment of Win32 apps using Intune:
- Maximum size of the application is capped at 8 GB.
- Devices must be enrolled into Intune. Devices with Azure AD registered, Azure AD Joined or Hybrid Azure AD joined. status are supported.
- Supported OS is Windows 10 version 1607 or later.
How to convert setup files to .Intunewin Format
You can convert setup files into .INTUNEWIN format using Microsoft Win32 Content Prep tool. Download this tool which will be in a zip file. Extract its contents to a folder which contains IntuneWinAppUtil.exe. This is the application / tool which we will use to convert our application to a .Intunewin format.
Below is a process flow diagram to create .Intunewin file.
For the purpose of this blog post, we will be downloading a sample application called Notepad++. Application is downloaded in the form of a .exe Installer. Therefore, we will have to use Win32 app Intune deployment method and package this app into .Intunewin format.
Download the application Installer
If you have already downloaded the Setup files of the application which you want to deploy, you can proceed to the next step.
Let’s download Notepad ++ from the vendor’s website. I will download the latest version of this app which is 8.4.9 at the time of writing this post.
Steps to create .Intunewin file
Please follow below steps to create .IntuneWin file.
- Once you download the setup files, move it a separate folder which does not contain any other files apart from application setup files. Notepad ++ is installed only using one .exe file so I have copied it to Notepad Setup folder. Your application may have other supporting installation files, make sure keep all the files in one folder.
- Create an empty folder anywhere in C:\ or D:\ drive called Output. You can name it whatever you like. This will be the folder where we will generate .Intunewin file.
- Download and Extract Microsoft Win32 Content Prep tool. I have extracted it to C:\IntuneContentPrepTool.
- Launch Powershell console as an administrator and browse to extracted Microsoft Win32 content prep tool folder.
- Run IntunewinAppUtil.exe and you will get options to specify Source Folder, Setup File, Output Folder and Catalog Folder.
- Source Folder: Provide the location of the folder where all application setup files are copied.
- Setup File: Provide the name of the .exe file which installs applications on user device.
- Output folder: Provide a location of a folder where .Intunewin file will be generated. You can provide any folder you like, But i generally create an empty folder called Output for this.
- Catalog folder: Specify N to not specify any Catalog folder or simply press Enter to skip.
| .IntuneWinAppUtil.exe One line Command |
|---|
We have run .IntuneWinAppUtil.exe command without any parameters specified. But you can also run .IntuneWinAppUtil.exe run with all the parameters specified in one single line.\IntuneWinAppUtil.exe -c <setup_folder> -s <setup_file> -o <output_folder>.\IntuneWinAppUtil.exe -c "C:\Notepad Setup\" -s npp.8.4.9.Installer.x64.exe -o C:\output |
- Verify the creation of .Intunewin file in C:\output folder.
What’s Next after creating .IntuneWin file
After you have created .IntuneWin file, you can login on Microsoft Intune admin center and create an app deployment based on Windows app (Win32) method to deploy .Intunewin file.
I have created several app deployments using Win32 app deployment method, You can check below posts which provides more details on Intune Win32 app deployment steps:
- Deploy MSI Using Intune Win32 App Deployment
- How To Deploy Apache OpenOffice Using Microsoft Intune
- How To Uninstall WinZip From Windows 10 Using Intune
- How To Deploy .exe Applications Using Intune
- How To Deploy Fonts Using Intune
Conclusion
In this blog post, we have seen how to create .Intunewin file using Win32 content wrapping tool from Microsoft. Its easy to create this file format as you just have to copy all he setup files in a folder and use this tool to generate .Intunewin file. You also need a folder location where you will generate .Intunewin file.