Independent App-V Blog

Now that App-V 4.5 is RTM a lot of folks are thinking about or actually getting ready to deploy the App-V 4.5 client.

If you have System Center Configuration Manager 2007 as a distribution system you can find information about How to Install the Microsoft Application Virtualization Client here.

The article is mentioning the following prerequisites that must be installed on the Configuration Manager 2007 client computer:

• Microsoft Application Error Reporting – For more information about installing Microsoft Application Error Reporting, seehttp://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=116684
• Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86) – For more information about installing Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 SP1 Redistributable Package (x86) see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=116683

Is doesn’t mention Microsoft Core XML services (MSXML) 6.0 SP1 however, but if you are using the setup.exe this prerequisite will also get installed for you (if not already present)

If you are troubling the the command-line for client installation you might want to check out this article, which discusses How to Install the Client by Using the Command Line.

And if you are looking to customize your installation with setup parameters you can check out this article which discusses the Application Virtualization Client Installer Command-Line Parameters.

If you are using a virtualization product (like VMWare of Virtual PC) to sequence your applications on, be sure that you don’t generate a snapshot while the sequencer is running. You could end up having duplicate GUIDs for your applications.

Obviously this would be detected if you were importing your application(s) into the management console of the App-V server. However if you are using the the standalone implementation of the App-V product (with MSI) you don’t have a central server.

Applications will start pushing each other out and you would get a series of log errors on the App-V client.

{tid=2080:usr=username}
The data directory for this user is already in use by another user with SID
S-1-5-18-xxxxxxx-. All users must have unique data directories. The
UserDataDirectory setting in the registry may be configured incorrectly.

More detail on this issue is discussed in a forum thread and also on the App-V team blog.

If you remember this post on SoftGridBlog you are already familiar with the technical implementation of App-V 4.5 and Dynamic Suiting Composition. DSC is a new feature in App-V 4.5 which allows us to let two virtual applications run within the same environment, but manage them separately.

If you want more background information on DSC read this post over on the App-V team blog. John Behneman really dives into the new feature explaining the architecture, giving an example and explaining how to dynamically suite plug-in applications.

Read more at source

The following documents are available on Microsoft Technet:

• App-V Extensibility Today Before the SDK
• App-V Security Best Practices
• App-V Security Operations Guide
• Creating a New Application Virtualization 4.5 Database Using SQL Scripting
• Microsoft Application Virtualization (App-V) 4.5 ADM Template
• App-V 4.5 Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide

Download them here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/appvirtualization/cc843994.aspx

There is a very nice list of Frequently Asked Question on Upgrading from SoftGrid 4.2 to App-V 4.5 available on Microsoft Technet. Check it out:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/appvirtualization/cc664494.aspx

From the MDOP blog:

I’m proud to let you know that the entire MDOP 2008 R2 suite of products has officially reached RTM status! New and existing customers can get App-V 4.5 starting TODAY, and will be able to get the other MDOP 2008 R2 components the first week of October!

There are a lot of new and very useful upgrades and improvements in MDOP 2008 R2 in addition to last week’s upgrade to App-V 4.5 like Localization, Asset Inventory Service 1.5 (AIS) and Advanced Group Policy Management 3.0 (AGPM)

Next, in the first half of 2009, we’re planning to release Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V). MED-V, which will be the first Microsoft-branded release of the recently acquired Kidaro technology, will be a key addition to MDOP; it provides a secure, fast, manageable, local hardware virtualization solution that complements App-V, and will serve to further strengthen our “desktop to datacenter” virtualization story.

Read more at source

You probably already have heard that there is a new streaming possibility in APP-V 4.5: streaming over HTTP. Besides that streaming over HTTP will be a part of the SCCM 2007 R2 streaming functionality, it will also be possible to set-up stand-alone or clustered IIS servers to stream APP-V applications over HTTP to the App-V client.

In this article I will describe how streaming over HTTP is configured and where you can benefit from it.

HTTP Streaming benefits:
Streaming over HTTP has some benefits where you can take advantage of. Besides that it’s easy to set-up and configure, there are some other benefits as well:

-          Administration is easy, IIS is well known and of course implemented a lot.

-          Easy to configure a simple or custom APP-V environment.

-          App-V Back-end components are not needed (if you want to provide shortcuts and File Type Associations with App-V then you will need a Management Server and back-end components. Eg. refresh and authenticate to central App-V Management Server and stream from nearest HTTP server).

-          Streaming over TCP port 80 is very useful when there is a firewall between the server and the client. (With RTSP you have to open a range of TCP high ports which is not the case with HTTP).

How Streaming over HTTP is configured:
To configure streaming over HTTP we have to start with the set-up of the infrastructure components:

1.       On the IIS Machine open the Computer Management Console from the Administrative tools in the start menu.

2.       Open the Internet Information Server Node and open the Web Sites node

3.       Create a new Virtual Directory called “Content” in the “Default Website” that points to the Content folder where he App-V packages are stored.

4.       Right-click the Default website and click properties.  Select the HTTP headers tab and click on “Mime types…”

5.       Create two new mime types: 

a.        “osd” as the extension and  “App-V Application” as the Mime Type. 

b.       “sft” as the extension and  “App-V Application” as the Mime Type.

6.       Save the configuration.

Now the server part of HTTP Streaming is configured we have to adjust the HREF value in the CODEBASE tag in the OSD file(s):

1.       Open the OSD file of an application that you want to stream from the HTTP server.

2.       Change the HREF value in the CODEBASE tag to the new HTTP server. E.g.: HTTP://%SFT_SOFTGRIDSERVER%:80/Content/APP_NAME/APP_NAME.sft

3.       Save the OSD file and test the application by double-clicking the updated OSD file.