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New App-V 5 Visio Stencil
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The App-V Visio Stencil has been updated to reflect the new components that were introduced with App-V 5.
It contains dedicated symbols for the Publishing, Management, Reporting and Streaming Service as well as symbols for Clients running in shared-content mode. Symbols are genric enough to be used with App-V 4.x as well.
SP2 for App-V 4.6 to be deployed via MS Update at End of November
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According to http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sgern/archive/2012/10/12/10359028.aspx (a very trustworthy source), Service Pack 2 for Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.6 will be deployed via Microsoft Update “at the end of this month” (which is November). A thing to consider…
App-V 4.6 SP1 – the right Sequencing Wizard
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The new App-V Sequencer 4.6 SP1 introduces – besides new features – a set of new wizards. While in the „old“ Sequencers, basically there were three different
wizards (New; Open; Open for Upgrade), there are 7 wizards available within 4.6 SP1. To increase confusion, most of these wizards contain choices that influence the Sequencing process. Depending on those process choices, some wizard steps will be skipped.
After working with the new Sequencer for a while now I tried to figure out which wizard allows (or prevents) certain activities.
Defective component registration with 4.6 SP1 Sequencer
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This is a loose translation of Sebastian Gernert’s blog articel “4.6 SP1 Sequencer registriert Dateien nicht richtig…” (German).
Sebastian namely thanks Jan Pfisterer and Marius Gawenda, who pointed him to that issue.
Because the new Sequencer does not require a separate hard disk partion for the Q: drive (but uses a Symbolic Link), some components (like OCX controls) may not register correctly. In their registration, they may point to the Symbolic Link’s target (on the C: drive) instead.
App-V Client configuration with ADMX Template
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Microsoft’s Application Virtualization Client 4.5 and 4.6 settings essentially are controlled by Registry values. A while back, Microsoft published an ADM Template to control some of these settings. Login Consultants then published an add-on ADM Template that controls the seetings that Microsoft did not implement.
Now, Login Consultants offers an new, full ADMX Template that uses the more current XML based way of manipulating software settings by Group Policy Objects (GPOs). Furthermore, the new ADMX contains all relevant settings to control App-V Clients, so admins don’t have to deal with two different templates any longer. However, there are som considerations…
What if duplicate GUIDs never appear? A reply to the Saga of Duplicate GUID
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Different versions of Microsoft’s App-V Sequencer used to have the habit of generating non-unique (but duplicate) package GUIDs under certain circumstances. This seemed to appear if the Sequencer Software was launched before a snapshot was taken of the VM. Tim Mangan and Nicke Källen found out that a similar issue occurs (under certain circumstances) when using the new template feature of App-V SP1. However, I never faced nor heard about duplicate GUIDs in practice… And the reason might be the VM’s state while taking the snapshot.
A Preview on App-V 4.6 SP 1
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During TechEd EMEA 2011 and – a few days later – at the German App-V User Group Meeting, Microsoft showed some features of the upcoming Service Pack 1 for Microsoft App-V 4.6, which is announced for the quarter of 2011.
You can watch the TechEd Videos. Ment van der Plas has collected them at http://www.softgridblog.com/?p=168. Also, Jurjen van Leeuwen collected some of the highlights at appvirtguru.com.
While Service Pack 1 for App-V 4.6 will significantly affect the Sequencer, there are also some changes to the App-V Client.
Should the App-V Sequencer be installed into the Snapshot Image?
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Introduction
In order to create a persistent state of the Sequencer Workstation for App-V Sequencing, it is recommended to either use Virtual Machine Snapshots or some Hard Disk Imaging Technologies. The reason for creating such a persistent state is that Sequencing always should be performed from a “clean” workstation and imaging or using snapshots are two very fast ways to accomplish this.
The Common Sense about that persistent image is that it should reflect the “Core (Client) Image” to certain extends and also it should not have any background services active that negatively influence the sequencing process. Microsoft’s Sequencing Guide whitepaper describes that more detailed.
But what about the Sequencer Software itself: should it be installed before the image gets created – or should it be installed each time after the image has been reverted?
In the past, there was an easy answer to that question. It was caused by a special behaviour (you may call it a bug) of the Sequencer Software – and this answer was: Do not install the Sequencer before creating the image. Essentially, the reason for this advice was that the Sequencer sometimes generated equal Package GUIDs (instead of random GUIDs) – it did not do that always, but explaining that would be out-of-scope here. Therefore, the Sequencer software usually was not installed before creating the image…
About the App-V Client Cache size not being (fully) controlled by the Registry Value FileSize
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Abstract:
The App-V Client comes with the Registry Value “FileSize” in the “AppFS” key that indicates to control the App-V client’s cache size. This is not the case.
Instead, there might be a difference between the FileSize Registry value on the one hand and the actual maximum value and the value shown in the App-V Client Management Console on the other hand.
To adjust the maximum cache size using centrally controlled methods you have to initialize/flush the App-V cache or to use Microsoft’s App-V Cache Resizer Resource Kit tool.
How to upgrade to Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.6
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Now that MS App-V 4.6 has been released, one of the tasks is to define an upgrade path for your SoftGrid 4.2/4.2/App-V 4.5 infrastructure to the new App-V 4.6 release.
If you already run App-V within your organsation, probably the new key feature – 64 bit Client support – is not that relevant for you. Howerver, you may plan to roll out Office 2010, you may plan to build an VDI envoronment or maybe you just waited for that release because you just want to upgrade you “old” SoftGrid deployment.
Upgrading to a new version always is a good time to consider and re-think your current installation:
- How did the amount of users scale?
- Do Subsidaries play a role in your infrastructure?
- Do you want to use one of the new Deployment Solutions that are available with App-V 4.5/4.6?
- Do you plan to migrate your base Operating System on Desktop computers, Terminal Servers (now RDS server) or hosted VDI environments?
- How startegic will Application Virtualization be for your application deployment?
