Application Deployment & Virtualization

If you want to automate App-v’s “ runvirtual ” function in a large Enterprise, Ms has not provided you with any central tools to enable it for you. Most examples online use the following two methods: Add the runvirtual keys with a GPO or a Script in every package and deliver it during package deployment. This is working fairly good, but it’s not very dynamic if you have a large and complex company and you need different runvirtual keys for different locations or computers you need to update GPO’s or roll out new packages if you want to change it. The way we are doing it is fairly simple, but it does provide us with the ability to set and update all our runvirtual keys at once from a central location. Our method was inspired by a blogpost by Thamim Karim. But we wanted to make it more dynamic so me and a member of my team scripted our own variant in 2017, and we have been using it ever since in our company.   How our script works: Starting with the basics of our ...

An even better, faster and more modern method for setting company and location variables is just using the registry. In my previous  article about dynamic scripting I was using environment variables, now I just use the registry. A sample powershell script:   $PC_COMPANY = (Get- ItemProperty HKLM:\SOFTWARE\COMPANYVAR\PC_COMPANY).PC_COMPANY Write-Output "Original registry key: $($PC_COMPANY)" #$PC_LOCATION = (Get- ItemProperty HKLM:\SOFTWARE\COMPANYVAR\PC_LOCATION).PC_LOCATION #Write-Output "Original registry key: $($PC_LOCATION)"   if ((Get- WmiObject Win32_OperatingSystem).name - notmatch "XP") {     $ programfiles = (Get-Content env :" ProgramFiles (x86)") }   $Destination = "$ ProgramFiles \Elements\ ElementsOutlook \ ElementsOutlook \ Config \" New-Item - ItemType Directory -Path $Destination       i...

Backstory: If you work with APPV you probably used the ability to connect several APPV packages with a Connection Group (CG). We all know it’s time consuming when there is conflicting advanced COM and isolation settings between packages already produced since they all need the same settings to work in a CG. First you have to open all packages, and then you have to see what’s different before you can make the same adjustment to all the needed packages, it takes time and it easy to forget something. What we wanted to do: So I have been working on an idea of developing a small  in-house PowerShell tool based on the fine work and ideas of Advanced Installers “ tweakappv ”with a colleague.   Tweakappv works basically like a small APPV api, so if you can crack the commands and syntax you can basically edit everything in one or more packages without doing manual editing. What we managed to do: Using a lot of time on trial and error we did manage to ch...