Cliff Saran’s FUD blog

Microsoft App-V Virtualisation Issues: 5x5x5 - Part 3

2009-11-05T11:45:34Z

This is the third part of my by three part blog and it looks like I might have to add another piece - meaning that this is really the third part of a four-part series...oops.

As mentioned in the previous two postings, we need to get applications working on Windows 7 and App-V: together. This means getting an application successfully deployed and running on an App-V client running on top of Windows 7.

This blog posting relates to the challenges facing administrators who have existing App-V packages (client versions 4.1 and 4.2) that were probably sequenced on Windows XP and who will need to migrate these packages to the App-V client 4.5. In fact, though the most recent client version of App-V is 4.5 CU1, we really should be planning for clients to deploy to version 4.6, which is expected to be released by Microsoft to production soon. Thus, I have tailored our results of the SFT package analysis to take client 4.6 issues into account as well.

With the updated release of Microsoft App-V 4.5 (and also relating to the update CU1 and 4.6 BETA), there have been a number of significant architectural changes that impacted how applications are sequenced. As a result, the sequencing practices are now different for versions for App-V 4.2 and later versions. As included in the release notes of App-V 4.5, there are now several core components which may generate application compatibility issues with App-V applications including:

· .NET Installation Components

· Microsoft Internet Explorer Components

· Microsoft MSI Installer Redistributables

· Core Operating System (OS) components

· Installation artefacts (settings left-over from MSI Installation processes)

In addition to these issues, it appears that empty directories (or folders) that are captured as part of the sequencing process are causing the App-V VFS to crash on certain clients. We have not fully analysed this issue yet, however I've included the results for our AOK "Empty Directory Check" Plugin for illustrative purposes:

I am really surprised by the results. And, by means of qualifying the results, this is really a preliminary analysis of these App-V SFT file types. The AOK Plugins may need to be refined or seriously modified based on some real empirical evidence of client issues. That said, all of the manual testing of each of these "classes" of issues did match the AOK Plugin results.

I am going to spend some time analysing these results but it looks like the big issues are .NET and IE integration issues with a surprisingly high number of SFT packages with empty directories - something that is known to crash the Microsoft App-V client sub-system. Maybe some more thought is required here.

To help out with explaining what we are actually looking for in each App-V SFT file, I have included some brief "snippets" of the AOK Plugin descriptions included in this particular report. These descriptions should give you an idea of the things that we are looking for in each application package, and the reason why we are looking there.

Darwin Descriptors Registry Check

This AOK Plugin will analyse each selected and loaded application for the following Registry key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\extfile\shell\Open\command within each application package. If a Darwin descriptor registry key has been raised, and AMBER issues will be flagged by the AOK application.

Empty Directory Check

This AOK Plugin will analyse each loaded and selected application package and ensure that the loaded MSI or SFT file does not contain any non-system empty directory table entries. This Plug-in will raise an AMBER issue if these types of directories are detected in an application package.

Internet Explorer Integration Analysis

This AOK Plugin analyses each loaded and selected application package for file entries that are included as part of the Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (IE6) redistribution package. This Plug-in will raise an AMBER issue if these files are detected in an application package.

Known DLL File Check Analysis

This AOK Plugin will analyse loaded and selected application packages for file level entries that match the list of Microsoft Known DLL's. The DLL's contained within this list will not support SxS isolation or any other Microsoft redirection technology. This AOK Plugin will generate AMBER results.

Microsoft .NET Sequenced Component Analysis

This AOK Plugin analyses each loaded and selected application package for file entries that are included as part of the Microsoft Windows .NET redistribution package. This Plug-in will raise an AMBER issue if these files are detected in an application package. Due to the Operating System and .NET installation requirements, if older versions (.NET 1.X and 2.X) are included in a sequenced package then application runtime issues may arise.

Windows Installer Redistributable Analysis

This AOK Plugin analyses each loaded and selected application package for file entries that are included as part of the Microsoft Windows Installer redistribution package. This Plug-in will raise an AMBER issue if these files are detected in an application package.

Sequencer Registry Exclusion Analysis

This AOK Plugin analyses each loaded and selected application package for file entries that are not fully captured as part of the Microsoft App-V sequencing process. This Plug-in will raise an AMBER issue if these registry settings are detected in an application package.

The final blog posting in this series will analyse some of the results and attempt to match these results to real world scenarios and possible application compatibility issues.

Greg Lambert, Technology Director, ChangeBASE AOK

Back on the chaingang...

2009-11-03T17:19:51Z

My iPod is fully loaded with the best of my collection to keep me spurred on, and the Pretenders' tune made me stop and think for a moment.

It's a productionline here at deployment central.

Engineer 1 connects bare-metal hardware and deploys the image from a Microsoft Deployment Toolkit server over the network.
The newly-installed Windows 7 image then calls to to the existing Altiris infrastructure to receive the core applications that have been packaged by the packaging team to silently install.

Engineer 2 and Engineer 3 (hey! that's me!) then take one of Engineer 1's new laptops and configure the installation for the user. This aspect could have been better automated, but this is a pilot and the experiences and issues are being collated by the team and will be reviewed for the larger rollout in 2010.

As you can see, there's 4 roles that I've mentioned so far, but besides this, there's a deployment scheduler and a couple of build developers, a whole tranch of project people, a Sharepoint consultant and 1st, 2nd and 3rd line support that also need to be considered and communicated with.

And all THIS for a couple of hundred PCs? Yup... if you want approval for a full-scale rollout then you need a positive user experience in the pilot and that means investment. Investing upfront and you get a slick rollout. Try and do-it half-hearted and you get a rollout that stutters and dies and three years later you'll still have some "legacy" PCs out there.... somewhere....

Thunderbirds are go!

2009-11-03T10:06:06Z

So, here we are, on the cusp of deployment of Windows 7 when the first PCs will be deployed with the thin-build installed.

There have been a couple of false-starts along the way as last minute technical issues have been resolved. Co-existence was a last minute headache - What happens to users as they roam between Windows7 desktops, WindowsXP desktops and WindowsXP via Citrix?

Application testing and approval is always a major concern in a deployment. In this case, the customer has decided to package a newer version of Lotus Notes for installation on laptops, and this has required rigourous testing. The folder virtualisation was a worry for a day or so - what happens to the .ini file? Where is the .id file going? and so on, but eventually thsi was ironed out too.

So here we are, all engines gunned and new PCs built.

Tune in next week for the update...

Nick Thompson
Senior Technical Consultant

Microsoft App-V Virtualisation Issues: 5x5x5 - Part 2

2009-11-03T09:54:11Z

As promised in my last blog, the focus of this post will be to review the results of our analysis on App-V application compatibility issues for Windows 7.

So, just to recap. We are analysing issues for existing App-V application packages that are running fine (i.e. well enough) on Windows XP with the App-V client and now need to be moved over to the Windows 7 desktop platform. The challenge here is trying to determine what sequenced applications under App-V will experience application compatibility issues when run on Windows 7.

So, not all of our standard AOK Windows 7 compatibility tests will be an issue. I have removed our installation logic and MSI Installer Custom Action checks from the results as they do not apply to this sample set as the source packages are not MSI files but Sequenced SFT files.

And, here are the Top 5 issues that you might encounter when migrating App-V sequenced packages are moved to Windows 7:

As you already know, Microsoft's App-V platform does not solve OS level compatibility issues, but solves application-level conflict issues. Just because an App-V application works great on Windows XP, unfortunately it does not mean that the sequenced package will work on Windows 7 or Server 2008 platforms.

So upon reviewing these results, it looks like the most common issues will be legacy Help File (HLP files) and Hard-Coded References as potential configuration issues and the un-signed driver issues will definitely cause issues on Windows 7 64-bit platforms.

I will do a full review (and some aggregation) of these results in the final post in this series. To give some idea of the ideas behind each report, I have included a brief description of the some of the AOK Plugins that were included in the results:

Legacy Help File Scan

This platform compatibility Plugin scans application packages for Microsoft legacy Help file formats (HLP) and makes them compatible and usable from within Vista and Windows 7.

Hard Coded References Scan

This AOK Plugin analyses each loaded and selected application package for hard coded values of folder paths. Any hard coded paths found that can be represented by an MSI Installer property will be replaced with the property.

Un-Signed Driver Analysis

This AOK Plugin analyses each loaded and selected application package and will identify each driver (DRV or SYS file) contained within the package that does NOT contain file level Signed or Certificate information. Due to the new requirements for Windows 7, all driver binaries must be digitally signed. If an application is installed on Windows 7 64-bit and it contains unsigned drivers, then the application will fail to load that driver and the application may fail to execute or behave unexpectedly.

Legacy Control Panel Applet Scan

As part of the platform compatibility scan for Windows Vista, all legacy Control Panel Applets (CPL files) are highlighted. These highlighted control panel applets should be removed or upgraded to Vista compatible versions.

TCP-IP WFP - IPX-SPX Scan

The Windows Vista networking stack has been completely rewritten. Instead of the dual stack model that exists in Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 (to support IPv4 and IPv6), it implements a new architecture whereby there is a single transport and framing layer that support multiple IP layers. This means that specific legacy protocols are no longer supported. In this case, the now deprecated SPX/IPX protocol.

Greg Lambert, Technology Director, ChangeBASE AOK

Microsoft App-V Virtualisation Issues: 5x5x5

2009-10-30T10:58:46Z

This is going to be a three-part series focusing on the some of the application compatibility challenges in getting applications to work on the Microsoft App-V virtualisation platform.

Over the next week, the three parts to this blog will include the following analysis:

1. The Top-5 application "pure" App-V compatibility issues

2. The Top-5 application compatibility issues for App-V on Windows 7 clients

3. The top-5 App-V 4.1 to 4.5 migration issues

There is a lot of analysis going on within ChangeBASE with over 5,400 applications in a number of formats in this particular analysis sample. As part of this compatibility review we are analysing the following application file formats;

· Microsoft Setup Executables (EXE's)

· WinInstall Setup Files

· Installshield Installation packages (EXE and ISS)

· Wise Installation packages (WSI, WSE and EXE)

· MSI Application packages (MSI, MST, MSP)

· Microsoft App-V files (SFT )

As part of this analysis, we've loaded more than 5000 applications into our AOK tool-set and run a number of our Microsoft App-V compatibility reports. I've filtered out the results somewhat and have included the TOP-5 application compatibility issues that we generally experience when packaging or sequencing (the packaging methodology for App-V) for the App-V platform. And, here are the results:

Top 5 App-V Compatibility Issues

Note: This distilled report was tuned for the App-V 4.2 deployment environment, not the most recent release (4.5 CU1 with all public hot fixes). I will generate a second table for 4.5 CU1 and 4.6 BETA in the third part of this series.

To give a brief explanation of some of the results I have included, here are some brief descriptions of the reports that were run against this portfolio of over 5000 application packages and installation routines:

No Shortcut Check

This AOK Plugin analyses each selected and loaded application to ensure that each application package contains at least one shortcut. This is required as part of the compatibility requirements for some Virtualised environments.

Non-Supported Reboot Requirements

This AOK report analyses each loaded and selected application to identify if a reboot is required. As part of the application packaging process, some applications may require a reboot of the installation machine. Due to the nature of the virtualised environment installation process, some elements of the reboot process may not be captured and under some conditions the process may fail completely.

Hard Coded References Scan

This AOK Plugin analyses each loaded and selected application package for hard coded values of folder paths.

Non-Supported Drivers

Due to the nature of the App-V installation process, drivers are not able to be installed in the application bubble. These drivers may also cause application installation and functionality issues for both Citrix and Terminal Services as they rely on Windows 2003 and Windows 2008 server environments.

Non-Supported Service Installations

Due to the nature of virtualisation technologies, access to the local machine environment is not always viable or available. Machine-level services require full access to the machine and may require access to pre-boot operating level services.

If you are wondering about the title, my 5x5x5 view of the world takes into account;

· App-V Virtualisation technologies

· Microsoft Windows 7 application compatibility issues

· App-V 4.x to 5.4 migration issues

The next stage of this series will be available in the next few days...

Greg Lambert, Technology Director, ChangeBASE AOK

Windows 7 top tips

2009-10-21T10:13:12Z

I've been looking at Windows 7 RC1 for a couple of months and it seems OK.. With the final product available, should we all upgrade? Here are my tips on upgrading.

1. Check your desktop PC spec. Vista-ready machines should be fine, but if you are running Windows XP, you may have compatibility issues. Before you do anything, though, backup your system drive (normally c:) onto a USB hard disk drive. If thiogs go badly wrong, you can restore your old operating system from this backup.

2. Windows 7 will support a lot of stuff out of the box, when it is first installed, but after installation, you may find some things stop working.

3. If things are not quite right make sure you have the latest ATI or Nvidia graphcs card drivers from their respective web sites. Similarily, Creative Labs and most PC card manufacturers will have download sites. You should search for Windows 7 drivers.

4. Now check your PC peripherals. The keyboard, mouse and monitor should work fine, but again it is worth checking if the manufacturer has updated river software for Windows 7. You will also need to ensure that you have the latest device drivers for you printer and scanner and whatever else plugs into your PC..

5. Finally, older applications and PC games may be unable to run on Windows 7. Unlike with Vista, it is possible to run older software. Check out XP Mode, which uses a Virtual PC-to run XP on top of Windows 7.

Migrating to Windows 7: Overcoming Application Compatibility Issues

2009-10-20T08:47:09Z

It has been on the cards for some time, but this week (22^nd October) sees the launch of Windows 7. In the months leading up to the launch, Microsoft has made substantial efforts to ensure that existing applications work with Windows 7. However in the corporate space the company recognises that the biggest barrier to Windows 7 adoption is still application compatibility.

So how ready are applications for Windows 7? The Win 7 operating system is built on the same kernel as Vista. As a result, issues that apps have with VISTA will also be issues with Windows 7. ISV's have worked hard to get their software running on VISTA so there are fewer problems than when it was first launched. However, in-house developed applications may well have issues on Win 7 unless they have been upgraded over the last two years or so to address these problems. And of course the extra features of Windows 7 do add some extra compatibility issues

So let's look at some hard numbers. ChangeBASE and our partners have conducted over 20 Windows 7 compatibility assessments for organisations, each with thousands of applications.

Our findings show that around 20%-40% are ready for Windows 7 and that 60-80% of a typical application portfolio will need some remediation to meet the requirements for being deployable to Windows 7. Around 5% of applications have an issue that needs to be addressed by the software vendor or programmer

There is of course a scale of problems with application compatibility - from the extreme of a product just not installing, to the other end of the spectrum where a particular printer driver may not work when the particular printer is not used in the organisation. So the 5% of apps that have an issue could in some cases still be deployed.

So there is some good news to take out of this. Technologies from companies like ChangeBASE can automatically fix most of the compatibility issues an application has in minutes. As a result it is now possible to get 95% or more applications running on Windows 7 with very little effort.

Comprehensive compatibility assessment reports will enable organisations to ensure that their application portfolios and packages are fully ready for the transition to Windows 7, as well as being compliant with Microsoft and industry standards. This is important given the addition of security features. Automated fixing technologies solve most of these issues.

In summary, organisations shouldn't fear the migration process. Whilst migrating to Windows 7 could present a number of application compatibility problems, these issues can be quickly addressed, and problems automatically resolved if the right steps are taken. If organisations prepare correctly, they can start to quickly reap the benefits of Windows 7, without suffering the pain that many previous migrations have caused.

Greg Lambert, Technology Director, ChangeBASE AOK

Steve Ballmer has no plans to simplify MS licensing

2009-10-05T10:48:36Z

Steve Ballmer is at Microsoft's London HQ in Victoria today to explain to customers, resellers and system integrators, why they need Windows 7, Windows 2008 R2 and Exchange 2010.

He says BitLocker disk encryption, application and desktop virtualisation and central policy management can all help to reduce IT admin costs.But users were more interested in what the he plans to do to simplify and lower licensing costs.

The room erupted in applause after one delegate at today's event quizzed Ballmer on the fine print in MS licensing, which could trip up unwary users. Ballmer says he has no plans to simplify licensing. "Customers want simplification to reduce costs; our shareholders want simplification without price decreases." Someone may choose a processor based licence for SQL Server, while another may decide on a server-based client access licence. Both offer lower costs depending on how they are deployed. So Ballmer intends to continue giving users this choice. He says he will accept feedback from users, if there are specif customer issues related to licensing that users are facing. "Email me at sballmer@microsoft.com,"

What does the Dell/Perot merger mean?

2009-09-21T14:15:48Z

Dell is to merge with Perot Systems, the US IT services businesses. Compared to IBM and HP, Dell hasn't been regarded as a player in the IT services business, However, after HP's $13billion acquisition of EDS, it was only a matter of time before Dell would move into services.

The deal could boost Dell's enterprise credentials, particularly among those large businesses that have standardised on Dell hardware. Until now, the company has had very little track record in the software business, something the Perot deal promises to redress.

It will be interesting to see how Dell's famous direct sales model works alongside the high value SI business. Its existing enterprise customers should be happy, as it demonstrates Dell's committment to enterprise IT - but can low cost commodity IT hardware really fit alongside high value (ie expensive) IT services?

Thanks so much for your atttachment

2009-08-27T13:37:17Z

Why do people send large unsolicited attachments? I have just deleted 7 Mbytes in two attachments from Sony's PR agency - Borkowski. People really need to go on a training course on email dos and don'ts. Storage costs money and sending large email attachments means that someone will have to store that 7 Mbyte of attachments for several years, on discs and tapes, which consume electricity, need constant upgrading and require greater amounts of storage space. There is an environmental impact.
Also, let's not forget that I probably wasn't the only person to get the info on the 24 megapixel Sony Alpha α850. If 1000 people were cc:ed on the email and received the same attachment, over 7 Gbytes of data would have been sent across the internet this morning - just for a single press release from one company. What a waste.
.

First look at BT I-Plate

2009-08-10T06:28:43Z

BT's I-Plate is designed to filter noise on the phone line, which deteriorates the DSL signal, causing the broadband speed to slow down or the line to drop. I'm a Talk Talk customer and for the last few months I've had terrible problems with intermittent internet acces, with the line dropping frequently. As a result, a one hour download from BBC iPlayert took over six hours, so I was keen to give the I-Plate a go.

The first step was to identify where the master phone socket was located in the house. The socket needs to be a split type NTE5 master socket. Thinkbroadband has excellent instructions on identifying the correct master socket and installing the I-Plate, so I won't repeat them here.

It took about 10 mintes to unplug the face plate on the existing master socket, slot in the I-Plate and screw the old face-plate on.

Speed wise, I haven't seen much improvement yet, but a speed test on my connection showed I was getting about 6.0 Mbps from a theoretical 8 mbps connection, which isn't bad. The good news is the connection hasn't failed yet. So for me, the I-Plate seems to be doing what it's supposed to.

Intel helps Facebook users fight cancer and climate change

2009-08-04T09:38:48Z

Intel has built a peer-to-peer computing application to enable Facebook users to donate their computing power to a good cause. Read more >>

What a twit

2009-07-27T14:46:46Z

Amazing. Twitter has screwed up and legit users have lost followers and have been barred due to its anti-spamming house cleaning conducted last week. People can't get through to the support line and email messages are not being answered. What do you expect from a freebie service?

This is the difference between real world companies,with paid-for services, who can be held accountable and are required to provide a decent level of service, and cheap, internet-only businesses, that don't seem to give a damn. It's about time people woke up to the fact that free stuff on the internet can be pretty naff. It's crazy to think anyone would try to build a business on top of something like Twitter.

Can IT be used to curb the spread of Swine Flu?

2009-07-23T09:45:49Z

NHS Direct has been using the internet to distibute information about Swine Flu in a bid to prevent spread of the virus.

Today it will open up a call centre to enable people who think they have caught the virus to get a medical diagnosis over the telephone from a call centre operator and receive a prescription. It is basically a CRM system for prescribing Tamiflu remotely.

Apollo 11 and the forgotten art of software engineering

2009-07-13T08:35:54Z

The Apollo lunar landing programme, which culminated in Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin's moon walk on 20 July 1969, represents a technical
achievement that has yet to be surpassed.
The computer systems that helped them get there were among the most
advanced of the time. Certainly, no more complex public software project
had been undertaken before the Apollo programme.
The Apollo Guidance Computer, developed at MIT for the lunar landings,
was the first embedded system. It was also the first example of a
fly-by-wire system. Such systems are used today on modern aircraft such
as the airbus A-380.
The pilots relied on computers controlled by safety-critical software to
keep them alive and enable them to navigate the 384,400km to the moon,
control the descent and launch of the lunar lander, and return safely
back to Earth.
Thousands of computer technicians and programmers were involved in the
Apollo programme. The software development process Nasa used to
co-ordinate these people is often cited as an example of software
engineering, although the term was coined midway through the lunar
project.
As the world celebrates the 40th anniversary of one of man's greatest
achievements this week, the idea of software projects being engineering
projects has somehow been forgotten.
Businesses are keen to gain a competitive edge by churning out software.
Apart from in aerospace and some safety-critical -applications, speed of
application development has become more important than quality.
End-users accept computer bugs as a way of life.
The British Computer Society is keen to raise the bar, with training,
accreditation and certification, which it hopes will turn computer
programming into a profession, with professional standards.
Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing initiative shows that commercial
software can be made less buggy.
But will users accept the price of higher quality software, the longer
development time and the potentially higher licence fee? They need to.
As computer technology becomes embedded in human society, the effects of
buggy code will become more obvious and damaging. Software must be
engineered to a high quality.