Changes in v4

Overview

• Modern Fluent user interface
• Digitally signed PowerShell module
• All C# code is now compiled
• Codebase completely refactored and optimized
• Removed all VBScript code
• Strongly typed and defined object types (no more PSCustomObjects, etc.)
• Defensive coding to ensure security and reliability
• Now provides PowerShell 7 and ARM support
• Extensions supported as supplemental modules
• Custom action support for extensions on deployment start and finish
• Support for overriding config via the registry
• Backwards-compatibility with v3 deployment scripts

Key Filename Changes

info

Further changes to the deployment layout are detailed in the Deployment Structure page.

Old Name	New Name	More Information
Deploy-Application.ps1	Invoke-AppDeployToolkit.ps1	Invoke-AppDeployToolkit
Deploy-Application.exe	Invoke-AppDeployToolkit.exe	Invoke-AppDeployToolkit
AppDeployToolkitConfig.xml	Config\Config.psd1	Configuration Settings
Was part of Config file	Strings\Strings.psd1	Language Strings

New Configuration Format

• .psd1 is the native PowerShell config file format. See Customizing Deployments for more information.

Key Function Name Changes

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For a detailed mapping of all v3 to v4 functions, see the Function Mapping page.

• Certain function names have been changed to avoid collisions with other scripts or modules.

Old Name	New Name / Details
Copy-File	Copy-ADTFile
Execute-Process	Start-ADTProcess
Write-Log	Write-ADTLogEntry

Variables

• Standard toolkit environment variables, such as $envProgramFiles, become available once an ADTSession is opened or after the Export-ADTEnvironmentTableToSessionState command is executed.
• Variables specific to a particular deployment (for example, $appName) are found within the ADTSession object (for example, $adtSession.AppName).

Booleans Replaced with Switches

v3 used many Boolean parameters, some defaulting to true and others to false. It was not always clear what the default behavior was without referencing documentation.

• Instead of TopMost $true or -TopMost $false, there is now a single optional switch, -NotTopMost, which clarifies that the default behavior is TopMost.

Standardized Filtering

The Remove-MsiApplications command in v3 used -FilterApplication and -ExcludeFromUninstall parameters with a complex syntax. In the new function, Uninstall-ADTApplication, these have been replaced with a single -FilterScript, similar to PowerShell's Where-Object:

-FilterScript { $_.Publisher -eq 'Oracle Corporation' -and $_.DisplayVersion -notmatch 'Java 8 Update 45' }

ScriptBlock Variables

Previously, Invoke-HKCURegistrySettingsForAllUsers in v3 required a $UserProfile variable. In v4, Invoke-ADTAllUsersRegistryAction pipes user profile objects to the provided scriptblock, so you can use $_:

Invoke-ADTAllUsersRegistryAction -ScriptBlock {
    Set-ADTRegistryKey -Key 'HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Common' -Name 'qmenable' -Value 0 -Type DWord -SID $_.SID
}

Standardized Array Inputs

Functions that accept multiple values now take arrays rather than comma-delimited strings. For example, instead of:

Show-InstallationWelcome -CloseApps 'iexplore,winword,excel'

you can specify:

Show-ADTInstallationWelcome -CloseProcesses iexplore, winword, excel

Error Handling

Many commands in v3 used a -ContinueOnError parameter. In v4, you use the standard PowerShell -ErrorAction parameter:

• Instead of -ContinueOnError $true or $false, use -ErrorAction Stop or -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue.

Uninstallation of EXE Apps

Uninstall-ADTApplication can now uninstall EXE apps in addition to MSI. Specify the -ApplicationType parameter to focus on one type or the other. The -ArgumentList parameter replaces any detected arguments in the registry, and -AdditionalArgumentList appends to them.

User Profile Paths

Get-ADTUserProfiles now has a -LoadProfilePaths switch to discover common folders within user profiles, such as Documents and Desktop. You can use Copy-ADTFileToUserProfiles to copy files directly to these locations.

WIM Support

There is now support for compressing file content into a WIM archive and mounting it during installation. You can manage this manually using Mount-ADTWimFile and Dismount-ADTWimFile, or you can use the -ForceWimDetection switch with Open-ADTSession to auto-mount and dismount any WIM files found.

If you leave the AppName blank, Zero Config will start automatically, mount any WIM file found, and install the MSI located inside.