Real World ClickOnce and App-V 5: AFE Navigator 7.5

Introduction

The reason I thought it would be good to look at a ClickOnce applications and App-V 5. Out of the box App-V does not handle the packaging of ClickOnce applications without changing the Sequencer configuration and jumping through some hoops afterward. Remko Weijnen provides a great overview as to how ClickOnce has played out in the enterprise and why some people just don't like leaving it alone with its default deployment architecture.

http://www.remkoweijnen.nl/blog/2013/08/05/clickonce-applications-in-enterprise-environments/

Why Sequence ClickOnce Applications?

What I want to illustrate is a real world scenario using an application called AFE Navigator. The issue with this application is that it is a rather large ClickOnce application which is around 80MB. Now imagine every user installing this in a Remote Desktop Services environment where there profiles begin to bloat by 80MB a user. It was clear that App-V would be more than convenient to properly distribute the application by providing a master copy of the application that all users can share.

Sequencing AFE Navigator

First what you need to do is launch the Sequencer (I am using 5.0 SP2 HF4 in this example), go to the Tools menu and open the Options... tab.

In the options window go to Exclusion Items and remove the LocalAppData exclusion.

Of course you get the warning message confirming the deletion of the exclusion. Click yes to continue.

Click OK when complete.

Now you are ready to package AFE Navigator, click Create a New Virtual Application Package to begin the Sequencing process. I'll assume you know how to start up the sequencer to save a few standard screenshots.

I will stop on the Package Name screen as I do define the primary virtual application directory as being a folder off the root of C:\ rather than trying to figure out a way to make the ClickOnce application install to that folder. In App-V 5.0 SP3 and newer you will not see the option to specify the PVAD by default.

I will skip over most of the sequencing because there isn't much that is needed other than the shortcut used to launch the application. Before I finish sequencing I manually create a shortcut which points to the ClickOnce application. The shortcut would have the following properties.

Shortcut path: \\Server\Share\AFE Navigator\AFENavigator\AFENavigator.application
Icon: \\Server\Share\AFE Navigator\AFENavigator\setup.exe
Working Directory: \\Server\Share\Apps\AFE Navigator\AFENavigator

* Remember to launch the application at least once while sequencing to capture the locally installed files.

Now the big question is updates, ClickOnce is designed to have the application automatically check for updates each time it is launched. By default the VFS is not write enabled in the App-V sequencer so these upgrades will not work which is good in my opinion. If you did enable a writeable VFS future updates would be redirected as user settings for the application and would bloat the size of the user profile which wouldn't happen if we packaged the latest update. That is why I would recommend installing different versions of the application in different folders on the network share so the packager can access the latest version then package and deploy the the upgrade as a new sequence.

In the end the question is should we package ClickOnce applications in general? Some people do not like ClickOnce because it installs to the user profile and others might view App-V's ability to reset the application state via App-V application repair as an important feature for supporting users. Personally I find these applications mostly benign and small so I think this is going to come down to preference rather than a solid recommendation.

Interested in App-V training? Check out my offerings at: http://bighatgroup.com/courses/

Where Can I Find App-V Training?

Introduction

App-V training takes many forms and I recommend you take a look at the various offerings available to determine what best suits your needs from both a delivery and content perspective. Training for App-V is offered by Microsoft and a number of customized options also exist outside of that offering but I will first start with what Microsoft offers and go from there.

Microsoft Training

Microsoft offers a five day course for App-V 5 that is not lumped in with the rest of the MDOP suite as App-V 4 was. This exam also covers virtual desktops so it is not 100% App-V but I do believe the additional content in the exam will be relevant to many users of App-V. This exam is 70-694 and can be found on the Microsoft Learning Website.

In addition to the traditional learning track at Microsoft there are a couple courses on Microsoft Virtual Academy that I have personally took that offering and has quite a bit of useful knowledge for free. The first course is done by Aaron Ruckman the senior product manager for MDOP at Microsoft where he delivers a session titled MDOP Application Virtualization Deep Dive. The second course is hosted by Steve Thomas aka the Gladiator who is a senior consultant for Microsoft that often is engaged with very large accounts using App-V. His course is titled Deploying Office 2013 with App-V and again I highly recommend it.

Training by Industry Professionals 

Next I will put in a shameless plug for training that both Tim Mangan and myself maintain for App-V since 2007. Tim Mangan worked at Softricity before the Microsoft acquisition and managed the product development at that time. He has since become a semi-retired geek writing tools, teaching, some consulting and presenting at conferences around the world. My role has been more firmly placed in the consulting world as I was an early adopter of the technology as I went to get trained on SoftGrid 3.1 before I had my first SoftGrid project. I teach but my focus is consulting and trying to find time to blog with my schedule. Our course is five days of pure App-V focusing on infrastructure but more so on various advanced App-V sequencing scenarios as that tends to be the most challenging part of using App-V for most of our customers. We are both long time MVPs for App-V which has now transitioned to being a Windows IT Pro MVP and Tim also enjoys being a Citrix CTP. Our joint website is www.gridmastertraining.com but we offer our courses independently at www.tmurgent.com and www.bighatgroup.com. Do note that at Big Hat Group we have performed online training in real time to some North American customers.

Hopefully I can do the others justice as there are some newer options that are worth considering. Another new MVP Thamim Karim formally a Microsoft employee offers training in London UK and this might be of interest to European customers. He is a super bright guy and I have faith that he is delivering a solid course. His course can be found here and he also has a blog on the same side worth checking out.

Kalle Saunamäki is a long time App-V MVP and that also maintains what I think is one of the best third party App-V tools for sequencing called Application Virtualization Explorer. He unofficially offers sequencing workshops at www.gridmetric.com.

I personally don't know much about Erik Havarstien (sorry Eric!) but he is currently a Citrix CTP offing both XenApp training and App-V training programs. His course seems to be more slanted toward XenApp users and it is an online subscription offering from what I can tell. You can find out more about his course by visiting his website for App-V training.

For App-V training in the Netherlands and Belgium as well, you can take a look at AIMED Solutions. They are a leading consulting & training company in the application packaging area. Thier training center, the AIMED Academy is based in the Netherlands, they are offering several courses all related to application packaging / virtualization and desktop management solutions. These courses can be held on-site/in-company/abroad as well. These highly valued App-V courses (also available in English) run on a monthly schedule so if you're looking for their training schedules visit www.aimedacademy.nl.

QA which looks to be a training provider based in the UK offers a three day App-V training program that can be taken online. This course looks to be a mix of infrastructure and sequencing for App-V 5. More information can be found on the QA.com website.

Also in Finland is another company that offers App-V training on top of professional services. This company is offering courses for traditional packaging along with App-V. Visit Centero.fi for more information.

If you happen to be an AdminStudio user Flexera has a course available to better understand how to use the application virtualization features in their product to make App-V packages. This course is specifically intended for packagers using their AdminStudio packaging tool and can be found here.

Finally I did find some training for a group called Avance in the Netherlands. I am assuming the training is in Dutch and can be found here.

If you feel that I have missed something then please feel free to email me at kevin.kaminski@bighatgroup.com to refine this article further and good luck with your training effort!

MVPDays is Back! 9 Canadian Microsoft MVP's to Present Content!!! (and counting)

MVPDays is a community roadshow for Canadians that was co-founded in 2014 by Dave and Cristal Kawula of Tricon Elite consulting to give the Microsoft IT PRO community an in person event that they could attend and get real world advice from recognized experts in the field. This year is the second year for MVPDays and the event is confirmed for Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton. The content offered will feature Cloud, IT Pro and Black Belt tracks including sessions that cover and assortment of technologies. Expect to see sessions on hyper converged infrastructure, hypervisors, Windows Server, SharePoint, System Center, PowerShell, Microsoft Azure and other cloud technologies.

Interested? Go to www.mvpdays.com and register for one of the locations nearest you. Also if you register in the month of June you can use the promo code earlybird15 for free registration. Yes, we have to wait until the fall for MVP days but feel free to register and join the discussion on the Facebook site https://www.facebook.com/mvpdays or Twitter at #CDNMVPDAYS.

Confirmed App-V 5.0 SP3 Masters Class LAX May 11-15, 2015

For those of you watching the schedule the LA class for GridmasterTraining's App-V 5.0 SP3 course has been 100% confirmed to run. The course will be taking place at the Best Western Course held at the Best Western Carriage Inn, 5525 Sepulveda Boulevard, Sherman Oaks, CA. The course will run May 11-15 and is a full five day run of our masters level courseware for Microsoft App-V. More details of this event can be found using the following link.

http://www.tmurgent.com/appv/index.php/component/content/article/107-trainingappvclass/325-2015-may-app-v-public-class-kk

For other class options and more information about the training course visit www.gridmastertraining.com.

Briforum 2015 USA!

Well it's another year and we've decided to throw our names in the hat for speaking at this year's Briforum USA. This year, Nike Kallen and I will focus in more depth the management challenges that some customers are facing with one of the largest and most popular management platforms known as System Center Configuration Manager.

As with the spirit of Briforum the conversation is meant to be candid and we hope that we can shed some light to real world Configuration Manager scenarios we get tapped to solution such as integrating with Remote Desktop Session Hosts. It is not that we are unimpressed with the change from packages and programs but we do believe we are still dealing with more of a 1.0 version of the application model and some of the previous challenges with Configuration Manager 2007 did not go away.

We are not the only ones that want to discuss challenges in the real world, the session list has been out for a few days and if these sessions catch your eye.
http://www.brianmadden.com/blogs/gabeknuth/archive/2015/03/09/check-out-the-list-of-sessions-for-briforum-denver-2015-july-20-22.aspx

I've found the community to be good and this one of the few times I get to sit down with some very exceptional people and talk tech. If you are interested in making it out but not near North America there is also one in London as well. To check out both events go to www.briforum.com.

Microsoft Virtual Academy

I thought I would post a note over here. I did a quick piece on some of the new courses in the Microsoft Virtual Academy that you can take at your own pace online. I've gone through some of the courses and actually was surprised by the quality so I'm encouraging people to take a look at the course list I've compiled.

http://myitforum.com/myitforumwp/2015/01/05/microsoft-virtual-academy-then-and-now/

Configuration Manager 2012: Query for Machines without Client and Show Last Machine Logon Time with Operating System

The title is a mouthful but this is a quick way to get a list of machines that may be potential clients. This query assumes that Active Directory system discovery is enabled with the default attributes.

select SMS_R_System.Name, SMS_R_System.LastLogonTimestamp, SMS_R_System.OperatingSystemNameandVersion from  SMS_R_System where SMS_R_System.Client = "0"