Creating an MSI for deployment for use with Canva Education and Nonprofit accounts

To create an MSI package of an Affinity V2 app, please open an elevated Command Prompt and navigate to the location of the downloaded .exe file. You will need to append /defaults to the end of the file location, see below example, and press Enter.

 

C:\affinity-designer-msi-2.5.5.exe /defaults

You will be shown a Create MSI dialog. The default install path is C:\Program Files\Affinity\ but this can be modified to your preferred location by updating the Install Path field. For a desktop shortcut to be created during the installation, tick the Create desktop shortcut option.

Once you have selected the relevant options, please click Create... to save the MSI file. The default file name for our MSI files is Affinity.msi. We would recommend you rename this file when creating MSI files for multiple Affinity apps to avoid confusion. When you have confirmed the file name and selected the relevant location, click Save.

You will get a message stating MSI file created successfully with an option to Show the file in explorer.

This MSI package can now be used for deployment via Group Policy, InTune etc... Once deployed, Affinity V2 can be launched on the workstation and verified Canva users will have to manually enter their Canva login details to activate and use Affinity.

 

Please Note: When using Affinity V2 with a verified Education or Nonprofit Canva account the following in app options are automatically enforced:

• End User Licence Agreement: Disabled
• Stock Panel Safe Search: Enabled
• Affinity Account Linking: Disabled
• Send Anonymous Usage: If any Privacy Settings have been Forced Disabled for the Canva account, this will be Disabled.

Is it possible to disable Check for Updates within Affinity when deploying to workstations?
 

Yes! When deploying the MSI you can include the NO_UPDATE_CHECK_PROPERTY="1" parameter like so:

msiexec /i <path to the affinity.msifile> /qn NO_UPDATE_CHECK_PROPERTY="1"