But we’ve got an issue with the Reader again.

Launching a PDF file from within the bubble gave an Access Denied error (using a physical Adobe Reader 10.1):

There was an error opening the document. Access Denied

This issue exits only when the PDF file is stored on a “personal folder”, like the Desktop-folder for example. (local User NTFS permissions?).

This isn’t an App-V issue but a Reader X feature called Protected Mode that gave this error.

It can be solved with some basic OSD scripting, but the first step is here to stay: “Know your application”. As Reader X gave this error, we can disable this feature with a registry key. Most of the work is to find out what registry key to set. To keep this short, here is my OSD script that disables Adobe Reader Protected Mode when opening Reader from within a App-V application:

<REGISTRY>
<REGKEY HIVE=”HKCU” KEY=”SOFTWARE\Adobe\Acrobat Reader\10.0\Privileged” NOREDIR=”FALSE”>
<REGVALUE REGTYPE=”REG_DWORD” NAME=”bProtectedMode”>00000000</REGVALUE>
</REGKEY>
</REGISTRY>

This goes into the VIRTUALENV-tag.

Happy sequencing!

I prepared my sequence machine with:

• Windows patches, dummy printer, dummy odbc connections
• App-V Sequencer 4.6
• Placed new addin sources and the sequence to upgrade on the desktop
• Made a snapshot

Started the Sequencer, opened the package for upgrade. Enabled “Show Advanced Monitoring Options”, and select “Allow Microsoft Update to run during monitoring”. So far so good, but after downloading & installing the patches all of them failed to install!

All patches failed with error code 0×80070643.

What went wrong?

I forgot to install the OSPP (Office Software Protection Platform) service on my sequence machine! (AKA Office 2010 Deployment Kit for App-V).

After installing the prerequisite all security fixes installed successful:

The app throws the following error:

The Application Virtualization Client encountered a problem while waiting for the application to be ready to interact with the user.

Error code: 19-00001003

Because the app launches a VBScript we changed the SUBSYSTEM Value from windows to console, and the app launched like it should!

 <IMPLEMENTATION>
  
  <VM VALUE=”Win32″>
   <SUBSYSTEM VALUE=”console”/>
  </VM>
  
 </IMPLEMENTATION>

Sometimes you must change this setting in the OSD file yourself. Because the AppV Sequencer doesn’t know if a particular application is a Windows (value=windows) or a DOS (value=console) program.

[xx/xx/2011 xx:24:42:784 OMGR ERR] {tid=C10:usr=xxx}

The Application Virtualization Client cannot use the OSD file specified because the GUID attribute for the CODEBASE element changed (rc xxxxxx04-00001004).

[xx/xx/2011 xx:24:42:799 SWAP WRN] {tid=C10:usr=xxx}

Could not load OSD file \\xxx\xxx\xxx.003\xxx.osd

[xx/xx/2011 xx:24:42:799 AMGR INF] {tid=C10:usr=xxx}

The app manager could not create an application from ‘\\xxx\xxx\xxx.003\xxx.osd’ (rc xxxxxx44-00001004).

According to the last log file entries this is a typical issue where the OS VALUE tag in the OSD file is missing. But this wasn’t the case because I cleared all OS VALUE’s from the OSD file.

My second thought was a legacy OSD file floating around the Softgrid cache. But after setting the State key to zero and rebooting the machine the issue still exists. But I kept walking this path, because the first log entry was about GUID attributes that has been changed (04-00001004). But especially because the issue started after performing an Active Upgrade of the sequence.

So I decided to clear all caches using these methods:

• Removed the App-V user cache (%appdata%\SoftGrid Client)
• Cleared the system cache again with the State key
• Removed the registry folder from Microsoft\SoftGrid\4.5\Client\Applications\<ApplicationName>

Rebooted the machine and BAM, I got my long awaited shortcut!  Probably a previous OSD version was floating around in the AppV User Cache.

What is changed and improved in this Service Pack?

• Package Accelerators: This is the biggest improvement in SP1. Instead of creating sequencing recipes using Word, Microsoft is introducing an easier method called Package Accelerator. Microsoft is also contributing, what we used to call, Recipes. A package accelerator for MS Project 2010 is currently available. In April a package accelerator for Office 2010 will see the daylight! And last but not least, Microsoft is working with Adobe to release package accelerators for Adobe products!
• Read only cache (for remote desktop services & VDI).
• The sequence process is redesigned, easier to use.
• Licensing for cloud applications.

Looking forward to play with this new version!

Apart from the basics, if I may believe the titles of these tutorials, also some advanced topics are mentioned.

Ideal for a rainy sunday afternoon: Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) Virtual Labs.

If we streamed Access 2010 next to Office 2010 Standard, Access launched and asked for a Product Key:

I thought the Office Software Protection Platform must take action here, and contact our KMS Server to obtain a license, but it didn’t behave like that. The Office Software Protection Platform (osppsvc) service is responsible for the activation. This service is installed by the Office 2010 Deployment Kit for App-V.

After going through Technet and some forums, I finally got it all together and found the solution:

The KMS activation is done when installing the Deployment kit for App-V. To use Access 2010 and Office 2010 Standard together, the Deployment Kit for App-V needs to be installed with the STANDARD and ACCESS parameters combined. These Licensing Flags can be used on the command line separated by a space:

OffVirt.msi ACCESS=1 STANDARD=1 /qb REBOOT=REALLYSUPPRESS

To verify which actions the OffVirt.msi installer exactly did, use the logfile parameter and check the logs:

OffVirt.msi ACCESS=1 STANDARD=1 /qb REBOOT=REALLYSUPPRESS /l*v c:\temp\OffVirt.log

If the ACCESS=1 parameter wasn’t set, you’ll get this in the logfile;

MSI (s) (E0:E0) [17:11:35:989]: Skipping action: Access_KMS_Client (condition is false)

When you did set the ACCESS=1 licensing flag;

MSI (s) (40:58) [17:29:32:699]: Doing action: Access_KMS_Client

Going through the logs makes everything clear. Combining the OffVirt.msi parameters makes sense!

Because only Office 2010 was having this slow first start (and autoload), we blame our sequence, the App-V infrastructure or the application itself. But neither of these were the cause of the problem.

What got our attention was the Network utilization, it only reaches 2%. While this wasn’t an issue at all with other App-V applications. Streaming other applications goes fast and uses up to 95% of the available network bandwidth. But Office 2010 was sequenced with the 4.6 RTM version of the Application Virtualization Sequencer. Most other applications were sequenced with App-V sequencer 4.5.

Since version 4.6 the blocksize is fixed at 64KB, there is no way to change this with the GUI sequencer.

I managed to change the blocksize with the trail version of SFT Encoder. Once the blocksize was changed from 64 to 32K, Office 2010 launches ten times faster! However this isn’t a permanent solution for the slow launch. We don’t want to convert all newly sequenced packages with SFT Encoder!

So the reason why only Office 2010 suffered form this slow first start was because it was the only large package sequenced with version 4.6. Other packages made with sequencer 4.6 where to small to notice the slow launch.

A colleague of mine changed the network card speed from 1GBit/Full Duplex to 100Mbit/Full Duplex. With this setting changed, packages created with sequencer 4.6 are streaming fast like it should.

Maybe it’s a networking issue (switches?), maybe a network card setting misconfiguration (teaming?) .. to be investigated. But at least our 4.6 sequences are streaming fast again!

Thanks to Madelinde Walraven for the help with this issue!

To be continued!

The Application Virtualization Client could not launch ApplicationName.

The package requested could not be found in the system data store or the files associated with this package could not be found on the server. Report the following error code to your System Administrator.

Error code: XXXXXX-XXXXXX0A-20000194

After some deep digging we found out that the App-V Management Server Installer set the CONTENT_DIR back to the default value! As we don’t use the default content dir C:\Program Files\Microsoft System Center App Virt Management Server\App Virt Management Server\content we found our problem.

Solve this by manually change the registry key  SOFTGRID_CONTENT_DIR (in HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SoftGrid\4.5\Server) to your current Content location (for example \\servername\contentdir).

As the client needs to be updated first, I will cover the client upgrade process only. (Client first, server next, sequencer last). Good to know that only the client and the sequencer are updated to version 4.6. No need to update your Management server as version 4.5.2.17140 is still the latest and greatest.

AppV has some Prerequisites, I will install them first. Then I will install the AppV client itself, using some command line parameters and a registry file import for applying custom settings.

Prerequisites

Application error reporting

msiexec /I SOURCE_PATH\dw20shared.msi /QN APPGUID={4C1CE627-6B28-436E-BD12-3A881065FB20} REBOOT=REALLYSUPPRESS ALLUSERS=1

Visual C++ 2005 runtime

SOURCE_PATH\vcredist2005_x86.exe /Q:A /c:”VCREDI~3.exe /Q:A /C:”"MSIEXEC /I VCREDIST.MSI /QN “”"

Visual C++ 2008 runtime

msiexec /i SOURCE_PATH\vc2008\vc_red.msi /qn /l*v “LOGFILE_PATH\vc2008runtime.log”

AppV 4.6 Client with command line parameters

Because storage is expensive, we have a different cache policy for virtual machines. Cache size on virtual systems don’t have to be as enormous as on physical machines. Not only the cache size is reduced in virtual machines, also the AutoLoad features are disabled via the MSI command line parameters.

To identify virtual machines I query on the computer name. As we use specific names for our VM’s, this should be a piece of cake!

We do an architecture check in a batch file. So I have two code blocks, one for x64 and another for x86 operating systems. Only the paths are different, so I will post only one.

AppV Client Installation

Echo install AppV x64 Client

rem Virtual Machine check
Echo %computername% | findstr /i “ISOPC99 VPC” >NUL && (
    Echo Installing AppV x64 client for Virtual Machines
    msiexec /i “SOURCE_PATH\x64\setup.msi” SWICACHESIZE=”4096″ autoloadTriggers=0 AutoLoadTarget=0 AutoLoadonLaunch=0 AutoLoadonRefresh=0 AutoLoadonLogin=0 SWIDCSDISPLAY=”Company Streaming Server” SWIDCSTYPE=”RTSP” SWIDCSHOST=”appvserver.domain.local” SWIDCSPORT=”554″ SWIDCSREFRESH=”on” SWIGLOBALDATA=”C:\Program Files\Microsoft Application Virtualization Client\GLOBAL\” SWISOFTGRIDDRIVE=”Q” /q REBOOT=REALLYSUPPRESS /l*v “LOGFILE_PATH\appv46.log”
    ) || ( 
   Echo Installing AppV x64 client for Physical Machines
    msiexec /i “SOURCE_PATH\Source\x64\setup.msi” MinFreeSpaceMB=”6000″ SWIDCSDISPLAY=”Company Streaming Server” SWIDCSTYPE=”RTSP” SWIDCSHOST=”appvserver.domain.local” SWIDCSPORT=”554″ SWIDCSREFRESH=”on” SWIGLOBALDATA=”C:\Program Files\Microsoft Application Virtualization Client\GLOBAL\” SWISOFTGRIDDRIVE=”Q” /q REBOOT=REALLYSUPPRESS /l*v “LOGFILE_PATH\appv46.log”
    )

Echo Import Regkeys
regedit /s SOURCE_PATH\appv64_v2.reg

The registry file that is imported in the last line specify the sftlog.txt log file location, and some other tweaks, have a look:

Registry import (x86)

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SoftGrid\4.5\Client\Configuration]
“SystemEventLogLevel”=dword:00000004
“LogFileName”=”C:\\PATH_OF_YOUR_CHOICE\\sftlog.txt”
“UserDataDirectory”=”%APPDATA%”
“ApplicationSourceRoot”=”RTSP://server.domain.local:554″
“LaunchRecordMask”=dword:005a0000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SoftGrid\4.5\Client\DC Servers\Company Streaming Server]
“Period”=dword:000002d0
“Refresh”=dword:00000001
“Reporting”=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SoftGrid\4.5\Client\AppFS]
“UnloadLeastRecentlyUsed”=dword:00000001
“MinPackageAge”=dword:00000001

Registry import (x64)

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\SoftGrid\4.5\Client\Configuration]
“SystemEventLogLevel”=dword:00000004
“LogFileName”=”C:\\PATH_OF_YOUR_CHOICE\\sftlog.txt”
“UserDataDirectory”=”%APPDATA%”
“ApplicationSourceRoot”=”RTSP://server.domain.local:554″
“LaunchRecordMask”=dword:005a0000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\SoftGrid\4.5\Client\DC Servers\Company Streaming Server]
“Period”=dword:000002d0
“Refresh”=dword:00000001
“Reporting”=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\SoftGrid\4.5\Client\AppFS]
“UnloadLeastRecentlyUsed”=dword:00000001
“MinPackageAge”=dword:00000001

That’s it.