Independent App-V Blog

I’ve been able to sequence every version of Microsoft Office I’ve ever come across. This goes back to Microsoft Office 95/97, 2000, but also more recent versions like Office 2003 and 2007. But I’m not writing this post to brag about this impressive list (ahum) and also not because I can now add Microsoft Office 2010 to that list as well. No, I’m writing this post because this time it was the first time that there was actually a significantly different approach in virtualizing Microsoft’s top product on collaboration, email, presentation and document management and other, often online, related services.

When I’m at a customer that are starting with application virtualization, they ask me frequently: “Ment, should we be virtualizing Microsoft Office?”

The answer to this question has always been “well, it depends…”

Technically you can sequence Microsoft Office just fine. The benefits of virtualizing Office includes running multiple versions of Microsoft Office on a single machine. Particularly useful in scenarios where organizations have LOB applications that are tied to specific, usually older, versions of the Office product. No more need for multiple computer running different versions of Office.

But there is a downside to this approach as well. The most often heard complaint from users is that not all features from Microsoft Office seem to be working, especially those that tie deep into the Operating System.

Now I’m not a heavy Office user and above all a technical guy. I find my way around the application. I start an Office application like Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Outlook from the start menu or from a file type association. I don’t mind that I can’t edit a document in Sharepoint, I just download en open and I don’t mind that I have to configure the mail settings through the virtual environment (how often does this change). On the other hand I do mind that Outlook Fast Search wasn’t working though, because I don’t seem to organize my stuff efficiently and this feature helps me a lot.

But I can understand that end users simply don’t understand this approach. All functionality in Microsoft Office simply needs to work. For these users Microsoft has been all ears. With the release of Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.6 and the Microsoft Office 2010 Deployment Kit for App-V these downfalls are now fixed, making the user-experience closer to natively installed than ever.

The Office Deployment Kit for App-V enables the following functionality while Office is running virtualized:

• Extend your usage of virtual Office 2010 through improved SharePoint integration to Open, Save, Edit files.
• Find your email items quickly with Outlook’s  Fast Search.
• Connect to your inbox using Microsoft Outlook Send To functionality.
• Print your documents directly to OneNote.
• Find contents within your documents using Office Document Indexing.
• Open Web based calendar items and RSS Feeds in Outlook.
• Perform advanced mail configuration using the Virtual Mail Applet.

The Deployment Kit offers proxies to deliver the functionality above. These proxies are simply additional entry points to the virtual environment. Normally shortcuts, file type association etc. are providing these entry points, but because the above functionality is so tight with the operating system, additional entry points had to be created. They will simply pick up a request (an API) and send it to an application in the virtual environment.

When it comes to deployment scenarios, the following will be supported:

Microsoft Office 2010	Sequencer Operating System	Deployment Kit on the Sequencer	Client Operating System	Required Deployment Kit on the Client	Supported
32bit	32bit	32bit	32bit	32bit	Yes
32bit	32bit	32bit	64bit	64bit	Yes
32bit	64bit	64bit	64bit	64bit	Yes
32bit or 64bit	64bit	64bit	32bit	32bit	No, sequencing on 64bit requires 64bit Client
64bit	32bit	32bit	32bit	32bit	No, 64bit software can’t be installed on 32bit OS
64bit	64bit	64bit	64bit	64bit	Yes, but proxies will not work

In this post I will provide you with some guidance how to virtualize Microsoft Office 2010 based on information from Microsoft (Prescriptive Guidance for Sequencing Microsoft Office 2010 on Microsoft App-V 4.6), information on Technet and my personal experience.

I will go for the first scenario in the table (highlighted in green). You must use App-V 4.6 as the proxies are not available on App-V 4.5. For demonstration purposes I will install all of the Microsoft Office 2010 applications and setting up all of the proxies. You can adjust this to fit your own organizational needs.

Preparation

Sequencing preparation involves setting up a machine that is representative for and end user device in your environment. Microsoft offers best practices in that area and I do advise you to keep them in mind (and read the sequencing guide), because I will not cover these basics in this post. You will need to:

• Install Microsoft Application Virtualization Sequencer 4.6 on the sequencing machine.
• Clients with Windows XP should install Windows Search 4.0, Microsoft XML Paper Specification Essentials Pack and .NET Framework 3.0.
• Clients with Windows 7 should have Windows Search, XPS Services and .NET Framework installed by default, but you can check through Windows Features in Add / Remove programs.

Other best practices include:

• Disable and stop the Windows Update service (net stop wuauserv)
• Normally you would disable the Windows Search service, but since we are explicitly are elevating this features, we leave it enabled.

Preparation also includes installing the Deployment Kit on a elevated command prompt and configured with some of the following parameters:

• If activation of Microsoft Office 2010 is done through KMS activation:
  • PROFESSIONALPLUS=1, VISIOULTIMATE=1, PROJECTPROFESSIONAL=1 depending on which Office installation you are installing
  • KMSSERVICENAME and KMSSERVICEPORT
• If activation of Microsoft Office 2010 is done through MAK:
  • Option 1: Volume Activation Management Tool (VAMT)
  • Option 2: PIDKEYS=”xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx”
  • USEROPERATIONS=0 if you want only Administrators to activate Office. USEROPERATIONS=1 if you want to let Non-administrators (e.g. Users) to activate Office.

I will be executing the following command:

msiexec /i OffVirt.msi PIDKEYS="xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx" USEROPERATIONS=1

Check out the video below how to prepare for sequencing Microsoft Office 2010:

Sequencing

Once you have prepared your sequencing machine for Microsoft Office 2010, it’s time to start sequencing. Installing Microsoft Office is pretty straightforward since I’m going to install all Office applications, but you can choose otherwise.

Start a New Package and give the package a descriptive name, like “Microsoft Office 2010”

The following actions should be done during monitoring:

• Install Microsoft Office 2010 to an 8.3 directory on your mount drive (i.e. Q:\OFF2010.V01) or if you are following strict sequencing guidelines you might want to install in a subdirectory. You’d might not want to include spaces in this path, just to be sure. (i.e. Q:\OFF2010.V01\MsOffice)
• Don’t select Install on First Use for any Office application. Either install or don’t install. I will be selecting the entire suite here just for demonstrating purposes.
• The Office installation does not have to be activated during sequencing.
• Start your preferred applications (like Word, Excel etc) and configure settings to fit your needs.
• I personally like to change the shortcut location from "..\Start Menu\Programs\Microsoft Office" to "..\Start Menu\Programs\Microsoft Office 2010". This would make sure that the shortcuts don’t end up in the same area as a potential local (or other virtual) installation of Microsoft Office.

Execute the following registry commands. Make sure that start an elevated command prompt during monitoring:

reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search\Preferences" /v "{4154494E-BFF9-01B8-00AA-0037D96E0000}" /t REG_DWORD /d "1" /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search\Preferences" /v "{C0A19454-7F29-1B10-A587-08002B2A2517}" /t REG_DWORD /d "1" /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search\Preferences" /v "{70fab278-f7af-cd11-9bc8-00aa002fc45a}" /t REG_DWORD /d "1" /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search\Preferences" /v "{c34f5c97-eb05-bb4b-b199-2a7570ec7cf9}" /t REG_DWORD /d "1" /f
reg add "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Windows Search\Preferences" /v "{0077B49E-E474-CE11-8C5E-00AA004254E2}" /t REG_DWORD /d "1" /f

Warning: the following commands hold registry keys for the 32-bit OS installation only. If you are sequencing 64-bit OS, you’ll need other registry key, see the Microsoft Recipe for more info.

reg add "HKCR\CLSID\{9203C2CB-1DC1-482d-967E-597AFF270F0D}\TreatAs"
reg delete "HKCR\CLSID\{9203C2CB-1DC1-482d-967E-597AFF270F0D}\TreatAs" /va /f reg add "HKCR\CLSID\{BDEADEF5-C265-11D0-BCED-00A0C90AB50F}\TreatAs"
reg delete "HKCR\CLSID\{BDEADEF5-C265-11D0-BCED-00A0C90AB50F}\TreatAs" /va /f

Also run the next registry commands, but be careful with copy and paste here, because the installation path and SFT_MNT drive is referenced. Be sure to change it to your situation:

reg add "HKCR\CLSID\{3FD37ABB-F90A-4DE5-AA38-179629E64C2F}\InprocServer32" /t REG_SZ /d "Q:\OFF2010.V01\VFS\CSIDL_PROGRAM_FILES\Microsoft Office\Office14\OWSSUPP.DLL" /f

reg add "HKCR\CLSID\{62B4D041-4667-40B6-BB50-4BC0A5043A73}\InprocServer32" /t REG_SZ /d "Q:\OFF2010.V01\VFS\CSIDL_PROGRAM_FILES\Microsoft Office\Office14\OWSSUPP.DLL" /f

reg add "HKCR\CLSID\{9203C2CB-1DC1-482D-967E-597AFF270F0D}\InprocServer32" /t REG_SZ /d "Q:\OFF2010.V01\VFS\CSIDL_PROGRAM_FILES\Microsoft Office\Office14\OWSSUPP.DLL" /f

reg add "HKCR\CLSID\{BDEADEF5-C265-11D0-BCED-00A0C90AB50F}\InprocServer32" /t REG_SZ /d "Q:\OFF2010.V01\VFS\CSIDL_PROGRAM_FILES\Microsoft Office\Office14\OWSSUPP.DLL" /f

The following need to be executed after monitoring (in the Configure Applications step of the App-V Sequencer wizard):

• Add the following applications to enable the proxies:
  • Proxy MailTo
    • %commonprogramfiles%\microsoft shared\virtualization handler\MapiServer.exe
  • Proxy Virtual Search Host
    • %commonprogramfiles%\microsoft shared\virtualization handler\VirtualSearchHost.exe
  • Proxy Virtual OWSSupp Manager
    • %commonprogramfiles%\microsoft shared\virtualization handler\VirtualOWSSuppManager.exe
  • Proxy Virtual Mail Cpl
    • %windir%\system32\Control.exe Q:\OFF2010.V01\MsOffice\Office14\mlcfg32.cpl. Watch out here, there’s a link here that depends on your installation path. So be careful with copy and paste.
• Not obligatory but I like these additional shortcuts to the virtual environment, because they might help me during troubleshooting and in other scenarios:
  • Command Prompt
    • %CSIDL_SYSTEM%\cmd.exe
  • Internet Explorer
    • %CSIDL_PROGRAM_FILES%\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe
  • Internet Connections Cpl
    • %CSIDL_SYSTEM%\inetcpl.cpl. Might become handy to define proxy server connections.
• By default the Add Applications wizard will create a shortcut for each added application. Because the proxies don’t need a shortcut, you can go ahead and remove that in the wizard.
• I personally like to rename all proxy applications to start with a similar word, so they sort out neatly in the screen.
• Make sure that the versions of all the Applications (including the proxies) are equal (for example: 14.0.4536.1000). You can change this in the Add Applications step of the wizard, but also manually change the OSD files after saving the entire project with Login Consultants OSD Editor.

Optionally you can define Primary Feature Blocks by launching each of the application during the Launch Application step of the sequence wizard.

When all monitoring is done you should do the following steps in the sequencer do the following:

• Set the following registry key to “Merge with local”
  • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0
• In each of the OSD’s add the LOCAL_INTERACTION_ALLOWED tag under SOFTPKG -> IMPLEMENTATION -> VIRTUALENV -> POLICIES -> LOCAL_INTERACTION_ALLOWED. Set the text to “TRUE”.
  • Alternatively you could save the project and edit the OSD’s through Login Consultants OSD Editor (registration required). This is what I would recommend!
• Not mandatory but you can clean up your sequence as well. I would check out the following directories and decide whether or not to include them:
  • C:\Windows\Installer
  • Q:\MSOCache
• You should also decide whether or not to Compress the package (I like to do so).

Save the project and you’re done sequencing! Check out these video where I demonstrate the actual sequencing steps.

Part 1/2

Part 2/2

Deployment

Once you have created the sequencing of Microsoft Office 2010 you can deploy it to a target machine.

Install Microsoft Application Virtualization Client 4.6 on the target machine. Depending on your infrastructure you should supply property values that fit your needs, which you can find here. For demonstration purposes I’m using a standalone configuration:

"setup.exe" /s /v"/qb-! SWICACHESIZE=\"6000\" AUTOLOADTARGET=\"NONE\" REQUIREAUTHORIZATIONIFCACHED=\"FALSE\" SWIFSDRIVE=\"Q\""

Install the Deployment Kit the same way it was installed on the sequencer. In my case:

msiexec /i OffVirt.msi PIDKEYS=xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx USEROPERATIONS=1

Then you need to activate the Deployment Kit proxies through the following command line:

msiexec /i OffVirt.msi ADDDEFAULT=Click2runOneNoteProxy,Click2runOutlookProxies,Click2runWDSProxy,Click2runOWSSuppProxies PACKAGEGUID={F5E9C7F8-1EF1-4486-AB9D-C491000695E9} PACKAGEVERSION=14.0.4536.1000 OUTLOOKNAME="Microsoft Outlook 2010 (Beta)" ONENOTENAME="Microsoft OneNote 2010 (Beta)" MAPISERVER="Proxy MailTo" VIRTUALSEARCHHOST="Proxy Virtual Search Host" MLCFG32CPL="Proxy Virtual Mail Cpl" OWSSUPPServer="Proxy Virtual OWSSupp Manager"

Be sure to alter the command line above with the following in mind:

• PACKAGEGUID can be obtained from any OSD. It’s the value of GUID in the CODEBASE tag of the OSD file (don’t confuse this with the GUID in the SOFTPKG tag).
• PACKAGEVERSION should match the application version used during sequencing
• The values of the properties representing the proxies should match the names used during sequencing.

Add and load the virtualized version of Microsoft Office. I’m using command line for demonstration purposes and because of standalone deployment, but you can use the deployment model that fits your environment. More information on adding applications through the command line options of the client can be found here.

sftmime add package:"Microsoft Office 2010" /manifest "Microsoft Office 2010_manifest.xml"

sftmime load package:"Microsoft Office 2010" /sftpath "Microsoft Office 2010.sft"

Keep the following in mind when copying the command lines above:

• Package should represent the name of the application that was used during sequencing (first step of the wizard).
• Manifest should represent the name of the manifest file created by the sequencer.
• Sftpath should represent the name of the SFT file created by the sequencer. By default the sequencer adds the version number of the package to this file (something like Microsoft Office 2010_5.sft).

Once you have deployed the Microsoft Office 2010 sequence to your machine you are ready to start using the product. Check out this last video where I demonstrate how to deploy Microsoft Office to a machine and start using it.

Closing thoughts

The Microsoft Office 2010 Deployment Kit for App-V does add tremendous functionality to the use of Microsoft Office running as a virtualized application. For a typical end-user the product reaches a level of confidence by overcoming some of missing functionality in earlier versions of the product. Especially the use of “Mail to”, “Fast Search” and “Sharepoint integration” make running Office virtualized very mature.

As an independent consultant I do still have some additional thoughts with this approach:

First of all the Deployment Kit for App-V was created for the exact purpose of overcoming the missing functionality described earlier in this article. It leverages integration from the Operating System (including Internet Explorer) to the virtualized Office product. This means that not all downsides of virtualizing the application can be overcome, one of them being integration with other applications.

Because other available applications (running installed or virtualized) don’t “see” the virtualized Office they can not integrate with it. More than often I see applications add toolbars or plugins in Excel or Word that simply won’t work if the product is running virtualized, unless…

• The application is running virtualized itself and joined with the virtualized Office environment through App-V’s Dynamic Suiting Composition (DSC) technology.
• If the application can’t or won’t be virtualized (for whatever reason) it can still be started “through” the virtualized environment of Microsoft Office. In my opinion this scenario however will create an administrative…well…challenge to say the least.

It would be really nice if Microsoft would focus on 3rd party integration in Office while running it virtualized. Starting with toolbars and plugins since I think that those are the biggest issue in organizations. Or maybe create something like a Software Development Kit (SDK) where other vendors could extend the Deployment Kit to make their product integrate better.

Secondly I would really like see not only the shortcomings in virtualizing Office to be fixed, but to create a more general layer for App-V so that other applications can benefit as well. Office is not the only product that installs Control Panel items you know or that creates customized URL protocol handlers. Indeed, Microsofts very own Live Meeting does this with the “meet” protocol.

Apparently Microsoft Office uses parts of the Operating System and Internet Explorer that are so tight, they can only be fixed by installing additional software on the OS, while installing software locally was what we are trying to avoid in the first place by using application virtualization.

Why not create a general layer on top of the OS (specifically for App-V) that would overcome some of the current limitations in the product? This layer could either be part of the OS (as a Windows feature?), be installed as an application virtualization additional layer (like the Deployment Kit) or even be part of the App-V client installation. This way it would be generally available for all products to benefit from.

With the release of Microsoft Office 2010 Deployment Kit for App-V we can conclude that Microsoft is listening to their customers and that these kind of thoughts do exist. As an MVP I will try to talk and share as much as I can with the Product Teams, making virtualizing applications even more commodity than it is already today.

Which brings me back to the initial question: “Ment, should we be virtualizing Microsoft Office 2010?”

My answer would still be “…it depends…”

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!

I got this info from our internal forum and thought it was interesting enough to share with you.

When you are sequencing an application the Windows Installer service might give you an error during monitoring phase.

Error 1719. Windows Installer service could not be accessed. Contact your support personnel to verify that it is properly registered and enabled.

When the application is installed without the sequencer monitoring, the installation finishes without an error and the application works fine.

In this particular situation the sequencer was running Windows Server 2003 and was accessed remotely through a Remote Desktop Connection (mstsc.exe).

The solution to this issue is create a console RDP session to the sequencer machine instead of an regular RDP session. 

You can connect to a console session through the following command:

mstsc /console /v:<server>

Thanks to my colleagues for publishing and solving this issue!

update:
“mstsc /console” has been replaced with “mstsc /admin” on newer Windows Operating Systems (Windows 2008 and Windows Vista SP1 and up). So the correct syntax would then be:

mstsc /admin /v:<server>

Thanks Floris for pointing this out to me.

My collegae Falko Gräfe has a dedicated website (www.kirx.org) about App-V related information.

He recently pointed me to his latest publication, an App-V Sequencing Recipe template.

The “Sequencing How-to Template” collects lots of the information that might be important to re use an application package or to create a new App-V package based on an older how-to guide. It contains fields for each value that normaly has to be entered or modified during sequencing with space to make notes about unexpected tasks.

The original idea came from the old “SoftGrid Sequencing Recipe Template” that was provided by Softricity in the past and never seemed to be updated and published by Microsoft.

The template maps the different steps in the sequencing process (preparation, sequencing wizard, wrap up) to documentation paragraphs, fields and tables. So it’s easy to document and easy find information back.

Download the template and read more at source.

Using Security Descriptors
When using the new App-V 4.5 sequencer, Security Descriptors are switched on by default.

But what is this security Descriptors function in the first place? How does it work? And is it of any use at all? In this article I will answer those questions.

What are Security Descriptors?
One of the big Advantages of SoftGrid always was that users could work with their applications like if they had Full Control rights. This was a huge advantage especially in Terminal Server environments where administrators usually put a lot of effort in getting applications to work on one hand and securing the Terminal Server environment on the other hand.

By enabling Security Descriptors during sequencing an application (switched on by default), permissions on the windows file system are “pulled into the bubble” (not the registry, thanks for the heads-up by Brian Kelly).  The sequencer always captures security descriptors during sequencing, but only with the Enforce Security Descriptors setting checked, the client enforces them on the file system drive at runtime.

So if a users group on the Sequencer had read rights on the D:\APP-X folder, these rights are stored in the Virtual Environment. Once streamed and run on the client, the user cannot edit in this particularly folder. In this manner you can set permissions on parts of the Virtual Environment and secure parts of being modified by a user.

How does it Work?
Like I mentioned before the enforcement of Security Descriptors is switched on by default. You can find the check box on the new Deployment tab of the Sequencer’s SFT-editor:

So if the check box is switched on the permissions are stored inside the virtual environment.

What’s the use?
Good question! Like I mentioned above, one of the biggest advantages of SoftGrid always was that users had sort of Full Control rights within their virtual environment. The advantage especially for Terminal server environments was huge.

I don’t see the advantage of switching the “Enforce Security Descriptors” setting on by default. I can imagine this option can be useful with some applications which need to have certain restricted permissions on parts of the virtual file system. For instance, some (badly written) applications need to have restrictions on parts of the virtual file system to ensure that settings don’t get corrupted or that .PKG files don’t grow excessively.

Because this situation only applies to some applications it is my opinion that the Security Descriptors should not be switched on for every application but just for the applications where you’re facing a problem that can be solved by using Security Descriptor Enforcement.

How to switch the enforcement off by default?
This is not too difficult. The first step is to create a default.sprj (if you do not already have one):  Launch the Sequencer, go to the tools menu and select options. On the options screen go to exclusion items and click on “Save As Default”.

I know this is a weird place for saving default settings. Don’t bother and just browse to the program directory of the Sequencer (by default  C:\Program Files\Microsoft Application Virtualization Sequencer) and open the default.sprj file. This is an XML file. Besides a lot of other settings, you can also set the Security Descriptors option in this file. Just set the value of the “UseSecurityDescriptors” option to “No” and you’re done.  

January 26th 2009 Posted to Sequencing, App-V Q&A by Jan

An article has come to my attention recently (whilst being available for some time) which addresses some issues in how to make the .NET framework available in conjunction with virtual applications.

Microsoft has made several architectural changes in the implementation of Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) 4.5 to ensure that the product is aligned with our roadmap for future innovation. One such change entailed moving the API intercepts from kernel mode into user mode. This change had a side-effect of changing the App-V compatibility with the .NET Framework from previous versions of App-V.

App-V 4.5 continues to be fully compatible with .NET applications. The change in compatibility only manifests itself with the .NET Framework.

This table summarizes the requirements for .NET support in APP-V 4.5.

Read more at source.

The manifest file is a new file in App-V 4.5 and automatically is generated each time when saving a Sequence. It is always named like the SPRJ and SFT filename you enter with _MANIFEST.XML following. So when you save a package and name it CRMAPP.SPRJ the manifest file will be named CRMAPP_MANIFEST.XML.

The manifest file contains all information to create Desktop, Quicklaunch and Start Menu shortcuts of the Sequenced application. Also all information about the application it’s File Type Associations and Context Menus are stored in there.

First off, lets talk about what it is NOT used for. Strangely enough the manifest file is not used in a “Native” App-V 4.5 infrastructure where you use the App-V Management and/or App-V Streaming server. In this case the .SPRJ file is still the file you use to import a Sequenced application into the App-V Management Console.

At this moment there are three other new App-V 4.5 deployment scenarios where the manifest file is used:

1. You need the manifest file each time you import a Sequenced Application into SCCM 2007 R2. So if you have existing Sequences based on SoftGrid 4.1/4.2 and you are thinking about using the App-V 4.5 integration available in SCCM 2007 R2, you simply need to open (not open for Package Upgrade!) your older Sequences and save them within the 4.5 Sequencer. The manifest file will automatically be created.

2. You can also use the manifest file to manually or script the import of a Sequence on any machine with the App-V 4.5 Client installed. This makes it possible to use App-V enabled (sequenced) applications without having any App-V Back-end infrastructure. The nice thing about doing it this way instead of pointing the .OSD file to a local file (which is another trick), is that with use of the Manifest file the application fully behaves like it is installed locally with all the shortcuts and File Type Associations.

This could be very usefull when Sequencing and you simply want to test the result on a App-V client.

This is the command you use:

SFTMIME.EXE add package:could-be-any-unique-name /manifest c:\folder\crmapp_manifest.xml /overrideurl c:\folder\crmapp.sft

So the unique package name I mention doesn’t even have to be the same as the name you used during packaging. It is best to do so off course. The streaming location in the OSD files from the Sequenced application will now be overruled by the /overrideurl parameter, and on launch the application will be streamed from file. When you launch the application at this point the application will be streamed from file.

If you also want to automatically load the application into cache after running the previous command, use the following command:

SFTMIME.EXE load package:should-be-the-same-name-as-before

To be able to use this type of import functionality the App-V client needs to be configured to “Allow Streaming from File” which you can set during a Custom Installation of the App-V 4.5 Client. Doing this afterwards cannot be done from the App-V Client Management Console (SFTCMC.MSC), but can be done by changing a registry key and restarting the App-V Client Service (SFTLIST). The registry key that needs it’s value to be changed from 0 to 1 is:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\SoftGrid\4.5\Client\Configuration\AllowIndependentFileStreaming

If necessary, for a non-local Admin to be able to run this command also the security settings within the App-V 4.5 client should be changed. The permissions called “Add Applications” should be checked in the App-V 4.5 Client for “Users” to be able to do this.

The use cases for using the command line to do this are various like for example doing this in a Terminal Services environment with App-V 4.5 and you don’t need App-V back-end infrastructure anymore.

3. With App-V 4.5 the option of creating an additional .MSI file when saving a Sequence is introduced. What actually happens is that the manifest file, .OSD and .ICO files are saved in the .MSI file. And when you run the .MSI file a MSI Custom Action is run from the .MSI file, which is actually the same SFTMIME command as I describe in scenario 2.

So also the end result of running the .MSI file will be the same as described in scenario 2. The downside of the “MSI way” is the OSD files are in the .MSI file and the .OSD files you see “outside” the MSI file are not used. Which means that if you want to quickly edit an .OSD file you need to do this from the Sequencer, where in scenario 2 you can do this without using the Sequencer en simply run the SFTMIME command again.

The nice thing from scenario 2 and 3 is that you can now easily integrate App-V 4.5 in any other deployment solution if you don’t want to use App-V in the “Native” way or if you are not using System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM).

 

Well if you have a minor change like a registry key or an .INI file, you don’t have to Sequence again. You can easily script changes into the virtual environment of an already deployed application. You don’t even have to use the Sequencer for this. Just edit the applications it’s .OSD file with the Login Consultants OSD Editor or something else that can edit XML files, like notepad.

Check the Microsoft KB939085 to learn how to run scripts in an .osd file in App-V.

Coming back from a holiday I found that there were several good App-V related articles released.

First there is a Microsoft Office 2007 Sequencing recipe on the App-V blog which is also available as a (doc) download.

When you have sequenced Microsoft Office 2007 be sure to check out this recipe how to upgrade to Office 2007 SP1. This article is based on the sequence created with the recipe above, but it should also work if you’ve created your own.

If you’re not ready to sequence Office 2007 (yet) you can go ahead and sequence Office 2003 through this recipe. Although based on Microsoft Excel you can use it for the other applications as well.

And if you want to set up a complete environment based on Windows Server 2008, SQL 2008 and App-V 4.5.0.1305, be sure to check out Justins post on Virtual World.

- Wow - great stuff!

If you’ve check out my previous post about 5 easy ways to look into the q: drive you are already familiar with several ways to get access to virtual environment of an application.

To complete this list here’s another one:

On the machine where you have successfully loaded the application run the following command:

sftmime /query obj:app /short

Now, this command should give you a (short) list of all the applications that you have currently in your App-V client.

So it will look something like this:

Microsoft Office Word 2007
Microsoft Office Word 2007
Microsoft Office Excel 2007
Microsoft Office Powerpoint 2007
SnagIt 8 8.1.0.0
Internet Explorer with Java 1.4.2

Now let’s say you want to run a command prompt in the virtual environment of SnagIt 8. To do so type the following command:

sfttray /EXE cmd.exe /launch "SnagIt 8 8.1.0.0"

The big advantage of this method is that it doesn’t require the registration of an additional application in the App-V client, when this is required if you copied an OSD and changed the name & version tags.