Microsoft App-V, applications or middleware you don't use App-V for

[TheLibrarian]

If you use Microsoft App-V, what applications or middleware do you install into the base Windows OS?

So far our list is:

• Office 2010
• Adobe CS4
• Flash
• Shockwave
• Java run time
• Acrobat Reader
• Quicktime
• Any application that requires drivers e.g. Lego Mindstorms Edu NXT, Data Harvest
• C++ run time
• J# run time
• Crystal Reports
• Google Chrome
• .Net framework
• Matrox VFM Software CODEC
• XNA framework
• CODEC's in general e.g. Techsmith Screen Capture CODEC

We don't vistualise Office because firstly it isn't (or wasn't when we tried it) stable and certain other applications can't deal with Office being virtualised (mentioning no names but you know who you are SIMS.net)

Adobe CS4 is in the list because it was a PITA.

Google Chrome made it to the list because to virtualise it you had to disable the sand boxing.

Acrobat Reader, same as Office.

Quicktime because applications that require it can't find it if it is virtualised, even if it is sequenced with said application.

Kodu failed when XNA framework was sequenced with Kodu.

Applications with drivers proved to be a PITA so we took the easy path of deploying them with the image.

The rest made the list because they would likely be problematic or in the case of the C++ run times Microsoft advised that they couldn't be virtualised.

[jamesfed]

Pretty much the same as you except as we don't have SIMS on site (LEA hosted through Terminal Servers) we have Office 2007 in App-V (soon will be offering 2010 but with 2007 being the default).

Did you get Kodu to work through App-V so long as XNA as installed locally?

Things are looking up in App-V v5 with things like applications being able to 'talk' to each other so could help solve some issues.

[TheLibrarian]

With the XNA framework installed locally Kodu work perfectly.

Watch out with Office 2010, the last hotfix we tried didn't quite fix the "save as dialog box not being displayed" issue, a lot of students lost work so we left Office local.

I doubt we'll switch to V5 quickly, 4.6 is working well so we'll let others take the plunge and minesweep the issues for us.

[jamesfed]

Nice little tip bit there about XNA then will have to give that a go

Will be playing around with v5 when it comes out of Beta - probably won't be until next summer that we go around and get it on the machines.

[Joseph_Burge]

Your list is the same as mine pretty much. While I had initial problems with Google Chrome, I now package and App-V the version from portableapps.

I simply unpack and set up the portable app on me own PC, start the packaging process on our clean virtual PC, copy the portable app into the monitored folder and complete the package.

[TheLibrarian]

It may be possible to use the Enterprise edition of Google Chrome now, when we tried to sequence it Chrome was ~V14 and as I said you had to disable the sand boxing.

IIRC that issue was due to be sorted in V18 but I've not kept up to date with what was fixed and what wasn't.

[mrbios]

Kodu failed when XNA framework was sequenced with Kodu.

Kodu went fine with XNA framework for me on appv 4.6, didn't sequence xna as a seperate program though, just installed it along with kodu in the same package. (don't use it for anything else anyway)

Only program apart from the rest on your list i had issue with is google earth, still trying to get that one to work.

Byki language program i had to start the auto installer off on another PC then grab the main program installer from the temp dir to install on the appv sequencer as for some reason it wouldnt see that the program wasn't installed and kept trying to download and install the language files to a non-existent app.

Didn't bother installing java locally though, just made it an app and set dependencies where required which seems to work fine.

EDIT: I also have flash setup to install via GPP rather than putting it into the image.

[TheScarfedOne]

Interesting... I keep this lot out of the main image, and let SCCM put them all on (including the AppV framework) at task sequence time...