J Stubberfield

So… About AppV and Office…

I’ve decided to write a quick review of Microsoft AppV and what I’ve learnt while trying to get it to work.

AppV is a thin software virtualisation technology by Microsoft. It comes with a Client (to run on the end user machines), Sequencer (to build the packages), Streaming Server (optional, streams packages down to the user), and Management Server (manages stuff).

It fits in nicely if you use SCCM and is a very snappy way to deploy applications. 

Why it is good:

• Fairly easy to operate and to sequence new packages
• Later versions warn you of potential issues with the virtualisation tech and your package
• Allows users to run applications before they are even fully downloaded by streaming as they go
• Quick restore back to factory defaults for application packages
• Package dependencies (such as Java) with packages to keep them separated from the system (allowing legacy applicationss to work better on new systems)

What isn’t so good:

• The technology gets in the way of communications with MS Office and at times the Windows OS
• Can’t use shell extensions
• Overcomplicated definition files sometimes makes troubleshooting confusing

Microsoft isn’t kidding when they say carefully consider the implications when deploying Office with AppV.

Although MS has released a set of “proxies” for Office and AppV that are supposed to do things like allow applications to call Office components for use and provide connectors to Windows Search Service they don’t exactly work all the time.

We had to work very very hard to get Outlook to even allow searching and even then without shell extensions users do tend to loose that polished look.

Applications that seek out MS Office as a dependency will freak out and stop working.

Plugins that form bridges between Office and outside applications will tend to stop working.

If you launch an application (such as IE) from a link within Office be warned, that application will launch inside the AppV package. Meanning if it changes the registry or file system the changes may not affect the wider OS. In addition we had a problem where GPO based proxy settings didn’t get applied to IE if it started within the package.

It is extremely useful however in packaging up those smaller, self contained applications that are just a pain to manage and update. It will allow you to quickly update your entire organisation in one go (don’t try rolling back though) and most small applications will run fine.

Hope someone out there finds this useful at some stage.

Allow Non-Administrators to Edit Power Settings in Windows XP

So you want to remove administrator permissions from a user, but still have them be able to edit “Power Settings”. All you have to do is change a couple of permissions in the registry. Below you will find how to do this, and do it quickly, easily, and in a manner that can be pushed out to many machines at once.

The best way to do this is to use “regini”. Regini is included with Windows XP (unlike icacls or a few other methods people suggest).

Regini is a command line tool that parses a standard text file to get directions on what to change in the registry. It allows changing of values, and changing of permissions.

This is the text file we used to allow everyone globally access the registry settings to do with the “Power Configuration”:

\registry\machine\software\microsoft\windows\CurrentVersion\Controls Folder\PowerCfg
     GlobalPowerPolicy [1 5 7 17]
     PowerPolicies [1 5 7 17]
          0 [1 5 7 17]
          1 [1 5 7 17]
          2 [1 5 7 17]
          3 [1 5 7 17]
          4 [1 5 7 17]
          5 [1 5 7 17]
          6 [1 5 7 17]

Basically that sets permissions on a couple of keys under “HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Controls Folder\PowerCfg” to allow everyone accessl

Putting the text above into a TXT file and running regini path\to\txtfile will solve all the problems instantly.