App-v Standalone Mode

Microsoft APP-V 4.5 onwards offers the flexibility to operate without the APP-V backend infrastructure. I had written a short blog article on this before. But i had never played with it.

This ability is great for SMBs and SCCM customers.

MSI package 
The MSI package wraps up the OSD and ICO files into a MSI package. This can then simply be delivered to the end-point to allow an APP-V package shortcuts be added to that endpoint and ran.
The only downside of this is that the OSD file is within the MSI so can only be edited within the sequencer and not a text editor.

XML Manifest file
When saving a sequence a manifest file is created. This is required for SCCM deployment.

Scripted Control
If you dont want to run a APP-V backend infrastructure you can use the command line tools to manage your APP-V environment.


Prepare the APP-V client for apps on file share
The APP-V client must however be setup to allow file based APP-V packages. This can be selected in the APP-V install wizard or set with the following registry Key.
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\SoftGrid\4.5\Client\Configuration\AllowIndependentFileStreaming


ADD the PACKAGE
SFTMIME.EXE add package:xxxx /manifest c:\folder\xxxxx_manifest.xml /overrideurl c:\folder\xxxx.sft

PRELOAD THE PACKAGE
SFTMIME.EXE load package:xxxx

Application Shortcut(s)

The following command is used to create a shortcut manually for the application

c:\program files\Microsoft Application Virtualisation Client\sfttray.exe /launch "xxxx"

Global switch

The Add package command needs to run for each user before they can launch an application within a RDS environment, or a /GLOBAL switch can be added to the command which will add the package for all users of the device.

Links

A great article that my blog is based on is
http://www.softgridblog.com/?p=96

SFTMIME  syntax
SFTTRAY Syntax