Weblog Sander Wilmink

Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5 Service Pack 1 (App-V 4.5 SP1) is now available. This service pack provides the latest updates to Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.5. Additionally, it contains the following improvements:

Support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

App-V 4.5 SP1 provides support for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. This includes support for Windows 7 taskbar, for AppLocker, for BranchCache, and for BitLockerToGo. Windows Server 2008 R2 is supported for only the Application Virtualization Server.

Support for third-party Kerberos realms

App-V 4.5 SP1 provides support for environments that have a trust relationship and mapped user accounts between a Windows Domain and an MIT Kerberos realm. For more information about how to enable this support, visit the following Microsoft TechNet Web site:

Improved support for application publishing and streaming over the HTTP and HTTPS protocols

App-V 4.5 SP1 provides support for application publishing and streaming over the HTTP and HTTPS protocols for the following operating system editions:

• Windows XP Home Edition
• Windows Vista Home Basic
• Windows Vista Home Premium
• Windows 7 Home Basic
• Windows 7 Home Premium

Customer feedback and hotfix rollup

App-V 4.5 SP1 also includes a rollup of fixes to address issues that have been found since the App-V 4.5 Cumulative Update 1 release. This rollup addresses known issues and feedback from partners and customers who are using App-V 4.5.

In addition to some stability improvements, this service pack addresses the following issues:

• When a virtual application tries to delete a file on drive C, a “file not found” error occurs even though the file is deleted successfully.
• When you create an MSI package by using the App-V Sequencer, third-party tools may be unable to validate the resulting MSI package.

For more information, go to KB976338

The following table lists the supported OS VALUE element options and the minimum supported client versions for Microsoft SoftGrid and Microsoft Application Virtualization.  This element defines the required operating system. If there are more than one OS element in a particular IMPLEMENTATION tag, it is implied that the software package works with each. If none are present then it is assumed to run on all operating systems:

One of the biggest issues App-V customers run into when virtualizing (sequencing) the Microsoft Office Suite is the limitation of interaction between locally installed application/functionality and the virtual instance of the Office Suite. With this in mind Microsoft created the MS Office 2010 Deployment Kit for App-V which is available in beta version as of yesterday.

It consists of some code that needs to be installed on the Sequencer machine prior to Sequencing Office 2010 and some code that needs to be installed (yes, a real install) on each client device where you want the optimal interaction experience.

Some important notes:

• It only works for Microsoft Office 2010
• It only works with App-V 4.6 RC Client / Sequencer and later 
• This will NOT solve ALL interaction/integration issues you potentially can run into when virtualizing Office.

The interaction possibilities that are fixed, are:

• Fast search in virtualized Outlook 2010 using Windows Desktop Search
• Ability for virtualized Office 2010 applications to open, edit, and save Office files hosted with Windows SharePoint
• Search indexing support for Office file types
• URL protocol redirection to virtualized Outlook 2010
• Print to virtualized OneNote 2010

Click here for more information and the download of the deployment kit.

Thanks to Rodney from Softgridblog.com and  Ivan de Mes for providing the info!