In this article written by James Preston, author of the book Microsoft Application Virtualization Cookbook, we will cover the following topics:

• Enabling the App-V shared content store mode
• Publishing applications through Microsoft RemoteApp
• Pre-caching applications in the local store

Publishing applications through Citrix StoreFront

(For more resources related to this topic, see here.)

App-V 5 is the perfect companion for your virtual session or desktop delivery environment, allowing you to abstract applications from the user and desktop, as shown in the following image, and, in turn, reducing infrastructure requirements through features such as shared content store mode.

In this article, we will cover how to deploy App-V5 in these environments.

Enabling the App-V shared content store mode

In this recipe, we will cover enabling the App-V shared content store mode, which prevents the caching of App-V files on a client so that the application is launched from the server hosting the application directly.

This feature is ideal for environments where there is ample network bandwidth between remote desktop session hosts (or client virtual machines in a VDI deployment) and where administrators are looking to reduce the overall need for storage by the hosts.

While some files are still cached on the local machine (for example, for shortcuts or Shell extensions), the following screenshot shows the amount of storage saved on an Office 2013 deployment, where the shared content store mode is turned on (the screenshot on the right):

With the shared content store mode enabled, you can check the amount of storage space used by a package by checking the size of the individual package's folders at the following path on a client where the package is deployed (where Package ID is the GUID assigned to that package): C:ProgramDataApp-V<Package ID>.

Getting ready

To complete these steps, you will need to deploy a Remote Desktop Services environment (on the server RDS).

The server RDS must also have the App-V client and any prerequisites deployed on it.

How to do it…

The following list shows you the high-level tasks involved in this recipe and the tasks required to complete the recipe (all of the actions in this recipe will take place on the server DC):

• Link the App-V5 Settings Group Policy Object to the Remote Desktop Server's OU.
• Create a Group Policy object for the server RDS.
• Enable the shared content store mode within that policy.

The implementation of the preceding tasks is as follows:

1. On the server DC, load the Group Policy Management console.
2. Expand the tree structure to display the Remote Desktop Server's Organizational Unit and click on Link an Existing GPO….
3. From the window that appears, select the App-V 5 Settings policy and click on OK.
4. Next, right-click on the OU and select Create a GPO in this domain, and Link it here....
5. Set the name of the policy as App-V 5 Shared Content Store and click on OK. Let's take a look at the following screenshot:

   

6. Right-click on the policy you have just created and click on Edit….
7. In the window that appears, right-click on App-V 5 Shared Content Store and click on Properties. Then, tick the Disable User Configuration settings box and click on OK.
8. Next, navigate to Computer Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | System | App-V | Streaming and double-click on Shared Content (SCS) mode.
9. Set the policy to Enabled and click on OK.

   

There's more…

To verify that the setting is applied on the server RDS, open a PowerShell session and run the following command:

Get-AppvClientConfiguration

If the SharedContentStoreMode value is 1 and the SetByGroupPolicy value is True, then the policy is correctly applied.

Publishing applications through Microsoft RemoteApp

In this recipe, we will publish the Audacity package to the RDS server to be accessed by users through the Remote Desktop Web Access.

Getting ready

To complete these steps, you will need to deploy a Remote Desktop Services environment (on the server RDS).

How to do it…

The following list shows you the high-level tasks involved in this recipe and the tasks required to complete the recipe (all of the actions in this recipe will take place on the server RDS):

• Create a Security Group for your remote desktop session hosts.
• Publish the Audacity package to that Security Group through the App-V Management console.
• Publish the Audacity package through Server Manager.

The implementation of the preceding tasks is as follows:

1. On the server DC, launch the Active Directory Users and Computers console and navigate to demo.org | Domain Groups, and create a new Security Group called RDS Session Hosts.
2. Add the server RDS to the group that you just created.

   

3. On your Windows 8 client PC, log in to the App-V Management console as Sam Adams, select the Audacity package and click on the Edit option next to the AD ACCESS option.
4. Under FIND VALID ACTIVE DIRECTORY GROUP AND GRANT ACCESS, enter demo.orgRDS Session Hosts and click on Check.
5. In the drop-down menu that appears, select RDS Session Hosts and click on Grant Access.

   

6. On the server RDS, wait for the App-V Publishing Refresh to occur (or force the process manually) for the Audacity shortcut to appear on the desktop.
7. Launch Server Manager, and from the left-hand side bar, select Remote Desktop.
8. From the left-hand side, select QuickSessionCollection (the collection created by default).

   

9. Under REMOTEAPP PROGRAMS, navigate to Tasks | Publish RemoteApp Programs.

   

10. In the window that appears, tick the box next to Audacity and click on Next, as shown in the following screenshot:

    

    Note that the path to the Audacity application is pointing at the App-V Installation root in %SYSTEMDRIVE%ProgramDataMicrosoftAppV.

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11. Review the confirmation window and click on Publish.
12. On your Windows 8 client, open Internet Explorer and browse to https://rds.demo.org/RDWeb, accepting any invalid SSL certificate prompts and allowing the Remote Desktop plugin to run.
13. Log in as Sam Adams and launch the Audacity application.

     

There's more…

It is possible to limit applications within a remote desktop collection to users in a specific Security Group. To do this, right-click on the application as it appears under REMOTEAPP PROGRAMS and click on Edit Properties:

In the window that appears, click on User Assignment and set the radio button to Only specified users and groups. You will now be able to access the Add… button, which brings up an Active Directory search dialog, from where you can add the Audacity Users security group to limit the application to only the users in that group.

Precaching applications in the local store

As an alternative to using the Shared Content Store mode, applications can be forced to be cached within the local store on your RDS session hosts. This would be advantageous in scenarios where the bandwidth from a central high speed storage device is more expensive than providing dedicated storage to the RDS session hosts.

Getting ready

To complete these tasks, you will need to deploy a Remote Desktop Services environment (on the server RDS).

How to do it…

The following list shows you the high-level tasks involved in this recipe and the tasks required to complete the recipe (all of the actions in this recipe will take place on the server DC):

• Create a group policy object for the server RDS.
• Enable background application caching within that policy.

The implementation of the preceding tasks is as follows:

1. On the server DC, load the Group Policy Management console.
2. Expand the tree structure to display Remote Desktop Servers Organizational Unit, right-click on the OU, and select Create a GPO in this domain, and Link it here....
3. Set the name of the policy to App-V 5 Cache Applications and click on OK.
4. Right-click on the policy you have just created and click on Edit….
5. In the window that appears, right-click on App-V5 Cache Applications and click on Properties, tick the Disable User Configuration settings box and click on OK.
6. Next, navigate to Computer Configuration | Policies | Administrative Templates | System | App-V | Specify what to load in background (aka AutoLoad).
7. Set the policy to Enabled, with Autoload Options set to All, and click on OK.

   

There's more…

Individual applications can be targeted for caching using the Mount-AppvClientPackage PowerShell command. For example, to mount the package named Audacity 2.0.6 (which has been already published to the Remote Desktop session host), the administrator would run the following command:

Mount-AppvClientPackage –Name "Audacity 2.0.6"

This would generate the following result:

Note that the PercentLoaded value is shown as 100 to indicate that the package is completely loaded within the local store.

Publishing applications through Citrix StoreFront

Apart from being a great addition to the Microsoft Virtual environment, App-V is also supported by Citrix XenDesktop. In this recipe, we will look at publishing the Audacity package through Citrix StoreFront.

Getting ready

In addition to this, the server XenDesktop and XD-HOST will be used in this recipe. XenDesktop is configured with an installation of XenDesktop 7.6 with a Machine Catalogue containing the server XD-HOST (configured as a Server OS Machine) and a delivery group that has been set up to service both applications and desktops.

The server XD-HOST should have the App-V RDS client installed. Finally, the App-V applications that you wish to deploy through Citrix StoreFront must also be published to the server XD-HOST through the App-V Management console; in this case, Audacity.

How to do it…

The following list shows you the high-level steps involved in this recipe and the tasks required to complete the recipe (all of the actions in this recipe will take place on the server XenDesktop):

• Set up App-V Publishing in Citrix Studio.
• Publish applications through the Delivery Group.

The implementation of the preceding tasks is as follows:

1. On the server XenDesktop, launch Citrix Studio.
2. Navigate to Citrix Studio | Configuration, right-click on App-V Publishing, and click on Add App-V Publishing.

   

3. In the window that appears, enter the details of your App-V Management and Publishing servers, click on Test connection… to confirm that the details are correct and then click on Save.

   

4. Navigate to Delivery Groups, right-click on the delivery group you have created, and click on Add Applications.
5. On the introduction page of the wizard that appears, click on Next.
6. On the applications page of the wizard, select Audacity from the list provided (which will be discovered automatically from your server XD-HOST) and click on Next.
   

   Note that you can also select to publish multiple applications at the same time.

7. Review the summary screen and click on Finish.

There's more…

Similar to publishing through the Microsoft remote desktop web app, it is possible to limit access to your applications to specific users or security groups. To limit access, right-click on your application in the Applications tab of the Delivery Groups page and click on Properties.

In the window that appears, select the Limit Visibility tab and select Limit visibility for this application to the users listed below. Click on the Add users… button to choose users and security groups from Active Directory to be included in the group.

Summary

In this article, we learned about enabling App-V shared content store mode which prevents the caching of App-V sored files on the client system. We also had a look into publishing applications through Microsoft RemoteApp which publishes the Audacity package to the RDS server which enables the user to access from the Remote Desktop Web Access. Then we learned about precaching application in the local store which forces the application to be cached in to the RDS session hosts, which has certain advantages. Finally, we learned about publishing the applications through Citrix StoreFront where we published the Audacity server through Citrix StoreFront.

Resources for Article:

Further resources on this subject:

• Virtualization [article]
• Customization in Microsoft Dynamics CRM [article]
• Installing Postgre SQL [article]