Independent App-V Blog

Finally, after a sneak preview last month, Immidio AppScriber 2.0 is released and a trial version is available for download (registration required)

From the website:

Immidio AppScriber gives users the freedom to activate applications in a secure self-service manner. IT departments save on labor while remaining in control. Immidio AppScriber 2.0 introduces delegated authorization based on workflow.

Some videos that explain the functionality, configuration and administration in short have been posted on the Immidio youtube channel.

• User Interface - Introduction
• Initial Configuration
• Administration - Part 1
• Administration - Part 2

For more information visit the Immidio website.

When I’m troubleshooting an App-V application one of the first things I check is whether the application is loading and running on that particular client. To rule out distribution issues I find myself more than often adding the application manually to the client cache. If you don’t have the ability of supporting tools like my own “ACDC” you have to know that this can easily be done through command line as well. In fact this is basically what ACDC is doing for you.

Keep in mind that you must have set the client to “Standalone Mode”, as decribed here

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Softgrid\4.5\Client

· Configuration\RequireAuthorizationIfCached = 0

· Configuration\AllowIndependentFileStreaming = 0

I’ll show you how to do this is in 6 easy steps with a sequenced version of Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2007

Step 1. Copy the binaries to the local machine in a temporary folder (i.e. C:\Temp)

Step 2. Open the command line as an Administrator (right click while pressing SHIFT)

Step 3. Browse to the temporary location and type “notepad [the name of any osd file in the sequence]”

Step 4. In notepad copy the [Package Name] to the clipboard and close notepad.

Step 5. On the command line type “sftmime add package:”[paste your clipboard]” /manifest [name of the manifest file]”

tip: press the [Tab] or SHIFT + [TAB] key after /manifest to locate the correct file.

‘

Shortcuts and File associations should appear on your machine now.

Step 6: On the command line press up to bring back the previous command line. Alter the command line to “sftmime load package:”[Package Name]” /sftpath [name of the sft file]”

That’s it the package is now made locally available.

Immidio will be releasing Immidio AppScriber 2.0 the coming month. This might be the coolest productivity add-on for Microsoft App-V. As I have blogged before, AppScriber is a web-based add-on for existing deployment solutions, which provides application Self-Provisioning.

Version 2.0 of AppScriber now finally adds a configurable workflow engine, which allows you to optionally configure “Approvers” for applications. Which means, that besides users can automatically enable ”General” applications for themselves, for some applications you decide on (Managed applications), upon user request, a notification e-mail will be sent to the associated “Approver”. The approver can then Accept or Reject this request. After this an e-mail will be sent back to the user with the decision the approver made and if accepted the application will be automatically deployed.

I created a video which demonstrates Immidio AppScriber 2.0 in conjunction with Microsoft App-V from a user and approver perspective.

For more information about Immidio AppScriber go to http://www.immidio.com/

Just Zarb wrote a nice approach when an organization is starting on virtualizing their application portfolio.

The first step in such a project is to identify which applications are installed and used in your environment. If your application delivery method currently consists of automating applications you probably have a good insight in this information. Software distribution mechanisms (like Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager) usually provide great reports for this particular scenario.

If you don’t have an ESD in your environment you might want to look at the freely available Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit, which has some basic inventory functionality as well.

Now having software installed on your enterprise workstations doesn’t mean that the application is mandatory for the end-user or the organization. More than once when I support customers in this particular process, application reduction is one of the most time consuming activities. Mostly due to political discussions.

Once you know which applications need to be deployed throughout your organization you should find out if there are good virtualization candidates.

Microsoft evaluates the potential candidate and places the application into one of three categories:

Ideal Candidate. Applications meet all of the possible candidate criteria and have no identifiable roadblocks to success.

Possible Candidate. Applications do not meet disqualifying criteria but may require additional research or validation.

Not a Candidate. Applications are more expensive to virtualize than the benefits achieved from virtualization. This category also includes applications that technically cannot be virtualized because of current limitations.

Remember that virtualization candidates are not only based on technical limitations of the application virtualization product you are using. Sometimes functional restrictions can weigh just as much.

Original article here.
Microsoft case study here.

One of the biggest issues App-V customers run into when virtualizing (sequencing) the Microsoft Office Suite is the limitation of interaction between locally installed application/functionality and the virtual instance of the Office Suite. With this in mind Microsoft created the MS Office 2010 Deployment Kit for App-V which is available in beta version as of yesterday.

It consists of some code that needs to be installed on the Sequencer machine prior to Sequencing Office 2010 and some code that needs to be installed (yes, a real install) on each client device where you want the optimal interaction experience.

Some important notes:

• It only works for Microsoft Office 2010
• It only works with App-V 4.6 RC Client / Sequencer and later 
• This will NOT solve ALL interaction/integration issues you potentially can run into when virtualizing Office.

The interaction possibilities that are fixed, are:

• Fast search in virtualized Outlook 2010 using Windows Desktop Search
• Ability for virtualized Office 2010 applications to open, edit, and save Office files hosted with Windows SharePoint
• Search indexing support for Office file types
• URL protocol redirection to virtualized Outlook 2010
• Print to virtualized OneNote 2010

Click here for more information and the download of the deployment kit.

Thanks to Ivan de Mes for providing the info!

Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced is a Windows Profile Management solution which solves a lot of Windows Profile Management issues and optimizes the overall user experience of Windows Profiles.

This is achieved by decoupling and segmenting personal application settings from the underlying Windows OS and Profile, making these settings available cross-Windows Platform and creating a consistent user experience no matter what Windows OS the user is working on.

While this way of handling Windows User Profiles provides a lot of benefits in a scenario where applications are installed traditionally (i.e. no virtualization), it can also be used to decouple personal application settings from App-V enabled (sequenced) applications.

What are the benefits?

• Decouple personal application settings from App-V Delta files (.PKG) proprietary format.

Using App-V there is practically no control over what gets stored into the user delta (.PKG), which in some cases can grow extensively. With Flex Profiles Advanced you can explicitly configure what application settings need to be restored and saved at application startup and shutdown, making you independent of the .PKG files. With Flex Profiles Advanced application settings are stored in an open format (.ZIP).

• Migrate user application settings from installed instance to virtual instance.

When moving from traditional installations (e.g. MSI) to App-V enabled (sequenced) applications, users lose their personal application settings for those applications because these settings are stored in the “real” registry of their Windows User Profile. When using Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced in such a transition scenario, it is possible to migrate settings you specify to the App-V enabled applications.

This even works in a scenario where you now run Windows XP with MSI installations and you are migrating to Windows 7 with App-V enabled applications!

• One transparent way to administrate all user/application settings.

This is especially a good way to manage user settings for scenarios where different deployment solutions are being used and users work on different Windows platforms. For example when users are connecting to remote desktops on TS or VDI and are also working on traditional desktops. With Flex Profiles Advanced it is also possible to manage user settings for both virtual and installed applications in the same way.

How do I configure this within App-V?

Without going into detail on how to implement Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced, which is explained in the Admin Guide, I will shortly explain the App-V configuration part of it.

When managing user settings for App-V enabled applications, it is necessary to restore and save these settings at application startup and shutdown, because the “real” registry and file information does not apply for the Virtual environment these application run in.

Microsoft App-V supports running custom commands and scripts at application startup and shutdown from the App-V application config file, which exists for each application. This file has the .OSD extension and each .OSD file needs to be edited for Flex Profiles Advanced to work.

Editing the .OSD file can be done during sequencing or afterwards using any text editor, XML editor or the App-V OSD editor from Login Consultants.

In each .OSD file there is a DEPENDENCY section. This is where the FlexEngine commands should be placed. Here is an example:

  <DEPENDENCY>
    <SCRIPT EVENT=”LAUNCH” TIMING=”PRE” PROTECT=”TRUE” WAIT=”TRUE” TIMEOUT=”">
      <HREF>c:\flex\FlexEngine.exe /r “%homedrive%%homepath%\PaintNET.zip”</HREF>
    </SCRIPT>
    <SCRIPT EVENT=”SHUTDOWN” TIMING=”POST” PROTECT=”TRUE” WAIT=”TRUE” TIMEOUT=”">
      <HREF>c:\flex\FlexEngine.exe /i \\fileserver\FlexINIs\Paintnet.ini /s “%homedrive%%homepath%\PaintNET.zip”</HREF>
    </SCRIPT>
    <CLIENTVERSION VERSION=”4.5.0.0″ />
  </DEPENDENCY>

For more information about the command line parameters of the FlexEngine, please consult the Flex Profiles Advanced Admin Guide, or type “FlexEngine.exe /?” on the command line.

In the current version of Flex Profiles Advanced, App-V integration is already fully supported! You only need to configure this manually like shown above for each App-V enabled application you want to manage with Flex Profiles Advanced.

In the upcoming version of Flex Profiles Advanced, the Flex Profiles Management Console will provide a wizard for integrating the FlexEngine into the App-V OSD files. This new version of Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced will be available Q1 2010.

Download a trial version of Immidio Flex Profiles Advanced.

MDOP 2009 R2, which containts App-V 4.5, is available for current MDOP customers and MSDN/Technet subscribers.  Besides MED-V, all the products within MDOP now support Windows 7. MED-V will support Windows 7, as Host OS (not Guest OS) in a release planned for Q1 2010.

Check out the detailed article on http://blogs.technet.com/mdop/

The RDS (Terminal Server) team blog announces the release of an App-V for Terminal Services Whitepaper:

 ”We are proud to announce the availability of the white paper “Application Virtualization 4.5 for Terminal Services.”  This white paper discusses the benefits, configurations, and considerations when planning a Terminal Services (TS) solution with Microsoft Application Virtualization for TS (App-V for TS).  Many customers want to find out the best way to configure and/or deploy App-V for TS on terminal servers.  This paper includes topics ranging from choosing an App-V for TS application delivery method to configuring RemoteApp and App-V for TS to work together.  We hope you find this document an indispensible read if you are implementing App-V for TS.”

Download the whitepaper here 

Now that the App-V client is part of the Windows Server 2008 CAL it seems that Microsoft has released the App-V 4.5 TS client as a free download.

Part of the download process is the registration of your 20 digit Windows Server 2008 Terminal Server Product Identification Key or your Windows Server 2008 R2 Remote Desktop Services Product Identification Key.

Download here.

Note: although the article indicates that Windows Server 2008 R2 is supported this particular download can’t be used on that platform since it’s 64-bit only. App-V 4.6 (currently in development) however will support 64-bit and is planned to be available H1 2010.

It is a fact that many applications require other applications to run properly. In App-V these dependencies can be sequenced along with the main application in the same virtual environment or they can be sequenced separately and joined together through Dynamic Suiting Composition.

In the old days we could use the “Run another program first” on the Advanced tab of the Program properties option to chain two applications together. But since App-V applications don’t have Programs we can’t use this anymore.

Luckily this issue can be solved by using Configuration Manager 2007 Task Sequences.(continue at source)