What is VMware App Volumes 4 ?

VMware App Volumes is a real-time application delivery system that enterprises can use to dynamically deliver and manage applications.

VMware App Volumes 4, version 2212, Release Notes lists New Features, Resolved Issues, and Known Issues for this release.

What’s New

Horizon 8 version 2212 in conjunction with App Volumes 4, version 2212 introduces Horizon Published Apps on Demand.
With this new feature, administrators can use App Volumes applications directly in their instant-clone RDS farms. Now applications can be delivered dynamically to a generic Windows OS as users launch them. This dynamic application delivery greatly simplifies static image management and gives administrators the ability to reduce their application specific farms. This feature also brings the Horizon and App Volumes administration consoles closer together, allowing Horizon administrators to add App Volumes Manager servers and entitle applications to users without the need for duplicate entitlements in App Volumes.
This feature creates an opportunity to reduce the time-consuming management of application installations on RDS farms, and enables scenarios such as multiple users being able to use different versions of the same application whilst logged in to the same RDS server.
When multiple users are logged in and using application packages, disks remain attached until the last user using the package logs out.
With multi-session operating systems, more than one package for an application can be delivered to a single Windows machine.
Compatibility to deliver more than one package to a single Windows machine depends on the application. The RDS package attachment option allows administrators to specify which applications should and should not have multiple packages from the same application delivered.
On the Edit Package window, in the App Volumes Manager admin UI, the Notes field can now be updated.
Login performance improvements using on-demand delivery with many applications.

Resolved Issues

The number included after each resolved issue refers to the issue logged in the VMware internal issue tracking system.

Icon extraction fails and no icon is displayed for the application shortcut when an application is delivered as on demand. This issue occurs when the icon is present in some file within the application which has the extension as .ico but the file is an executable (.exe). [3056378]
Shortcut data does not get captured in the metadata.json file for shortcuts with path length more than 260 characters. As a result, application shortcut does not appear when the application is delivered on-demand. [3038371]
Certain applications with many icons related to file type associations might increase the login duration due to the time taken to transfer the icon content to the virtual machine. [2989141]
Workaround: Turn off the file type associations feature (CaptureFTA) on the machine that is used to package these applications.

For more information about the CaptureFTA parameter, see the Parameters for Configuring svservice section in the VMware App Volumes 4, version 2206 Administration Guide.
When the Box Drive application is assigned to a computer and any user logs into that computer, application launch fails when using the shortcut and the following error is seen: This action is not allowed for application ‘Box’. Please contact your administrator. [3002403]
File Explorer is slow when processing files in folders that contain large numbers of files. [3029679]
Towards the end of an in-app Chrome update, the user is prompted to relaunch Chrome to complete the update process. When natively installed, the current version of Chrome exits and the newer version opens immediately. With App Volumes, though, after the current version of Chrome exits, the newer version of Chrome opens after a delay of several minutes and there is no visible activity on the user computer until then. [3038483]
In Windows 11 configurations that include a UIA+profile Writable Volume, printers deleted by means of the Windows GUI might reappear in subsequent sessions. [3029793]
ArcGIS and related applications, such as ArcMap, are slow in the presence of App Volumes, even when ArcGIS is natively installed. [3036343]
Some 32-bit registry operations fail during App Volumes packaging. As a result, when the following custom PowerShell script is run on a 64-bit virtual machine which has 32-bit Office 365 natively installed, the second command does not display the expected operating system information. [3050432]
```
$msoExcel = New-Object -ComObject Excel.Application 
$msoExcel | Select-Object -Property OperatingSystem
```
In versions earlier than App Volumes 4, version 2212, to achieve the correct output, an App Volumes packaging optimization registry key, OptimizationLevel must be turned off by setting the registry value to 0 (reg add HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\svdriver\Parameters /v OptimizationLevel /t REG_DWORD /d) and prior to packaging, the operating system must be restarted. Note that optimization is turned on (registry value is 1) by default.

Known Issues

The number included after each known issue refers to the issue logged in the VMware internal issue tracking system.

If it is not possible to determine the Active Directory site from an IP address or subnet, a default Active Directory site is not set. This might result in App Volumes Manager contacting Domain Controllers out of its (App Volumes Manager’s) Active Directory site. [AVM-28680]
Application packages and Writable Volumes cannot be attached to instant-clone desktop pools which have the Add vTPM Device to VMs option selected in the Horizon console. [AVM-31057]
For more information about the Add vTPM Device to VMs option, see the Windows Desktops and Applications in Horizon 8 documentation.
For more information about the Virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM), see the vSphere Virtual Machine Administration documentation.
Workaround: Follow the instructions as mentioned in this knowledge base article.
After enabling the Mount ESXi option in the Machine Managers page and when saving this setting, the following error is visible in the App Volumes Manager admin UI: Failed to connect n of n hosts host1.com host2.com hostn.com [AVM-31066]
App Volumes applications are attached at login (classic delivery mode) to host machines which are configured to receive an on demand VMware Horizon published application. These applications are unnecessarily attached at login when a published application is launched. As a result, both the published application and any classic assignments are delivered. However, there is no impact to end user. [3116474]
For more information about package delivery modes, see the Understanding Package Delivery Modes in App Volumes section in the VMware App Volumes 4 Administration Guide at VMware Docs.
For more information about a VMware published application on demand, see the Configure Horizon 8 for Published Applications on Demand Delivery in the Windows Desktops and Applications in Horizon 8 guide at VMware Docs.
Users might not receive assigned applications when logged into an agent computer running Microsoft Windows Server 2016 and later due to a mismatch in the OS type. In the App Volumes Manager admin UI, the OS column in the COMPUTERS tab incorrectly displays DESKTOP instead of SERVER. [3116072]
Workaround: In the App Volumes Manager admin UI, navigate to the CONFIGURATIONS - > Settings page, and turn on the toggle for the Allow package delivery to any operating system setting.
Applications packaged on Windows 11 are shown as packaged with Windows 10 and applications packaged on Windows server 2019 and Windows server 2022 are shown as packaged with Windows server 2016 in App Volumes Manager admin UI. [AVM-29123]
App Volumes Manager installation fails with the following error: Unable to install App Volumes Manager with region language (Control Panel setting) except English when the language setting on the virtual machine is Arabic. [2884143]
Workaround: Change the language to English and then install App Volumes Manager.
“new Microsoft Teams” which is installed in the base image, launched, and updated successfully by the user with a UIA+profile Writable Volume at the first login fails to launch at the second login onwards with the same UIA + Profile writable. This failure occurs because unexpected registry entries are captured in the Writable Volume. [AVA-24024]
Workaround: Customize the base image by adding the following exclusions in custom\snapvol.cfg:
```
exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\MACHINE\Software\Classes\PackagedCom
exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\ms-teams.exeexclude_registry=\REGISTRY\MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\ms-teamsupdate.exe
```
When the user having the same Writable Volume logs into the agent computer which has the updated based image, new Microsoft Teams launches successfully.
“new Microsoft Teams” application fails to launch when Profile-only or UIA+profile Writable Volume is attached to the agent computer.
Note: When this issue occurs, no error message is displayed by the application. [AVA-23756]
End users with a Writable Volume experience an increase in the login time if there is a difference in the registered MOF (Managed Object Format) entries between the base virtual machine and the Writable Volume. [AVA-23247]
When an App Volumes application package or Writable Volume includes a printer specification and the memory integrity feature is enabled, Windows crashes at startup. [AVA-23138]
Memory integrity is a virtualization-based security (VBS) feature. This feature is sometimes referred to as hypervisor-protected code integrity (HVCI). For more information about this feature, see the relevant Microsoft documentation.
After the Windows update of “September 12, 2023—KB5030219 (OS Build 22621.2283)” on a VM with either an application package or Writable Volume attached, Windows start menu and search do not respond. [AVA-23022]
Workaround: Create the file “%SVAgent%\Config\Custom\Snapvol.cfg” on the base image with the following content: exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PolicyManager\default
An application assigned to an RDS server using App Volumes Manager is not listed in the Horizon Console. As a result, a Horizon administrator is unable to create an application pool with the application assigned to the RDS server. [AVA-20887]
Workaround:
1. On the RDS server where agent is installed, locate the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\svdriver\Parameters, create a REG_DWORD value OverrideSkipHzWsnmAppScanCalls, and set the value to 1.
2. Restart the RDS server.
If a VMDK of an application package contains a square bracket, ‘[‘, the package does not get imported to App Volumes. As a result, the package is not listed in the Inventory tab of the App Volumes Manager admin UI. [3034059]
Workaround : Rename the VMDK and import the package again.
An OS junction point from a native folder that belongs to a banned list to a non-virtualized folder (such as %APPDATA% in configurations that do not use UIA+Profile Writable Volume or a Profile-only Writable Volume) does not work properly. Files written to the junction source do not appear in the junction target. [3006443]
In a multi-session environment, the error associated with the Microsoft Office application is also visible to users who are not assigned this application package. While the application does not behave as expected for the users assigned to this package, the error has no effect on users who are not assigned to the package. [3072078]
Applications cannot write large string values (several hundred thousand characters) to the registry. [3034063]
When a Writable Volume and FSLogix Office Container are deployed together in a VDI, the FSLogix Office Container VHD is not created on an SMB file share. This issue occurs only when the Cloud Cache feature is enabled. [2791414]
Workaround: Deactivate the Cloud Cache feature of FSLogix Office Container.
Sometimes, the applications that are packaged using App Volumes versions older than 2.18.2 have many redundant firewall rules. These rules can impact the end-user login time on agent computers where the application package is deployed. This issue is fixed in App Volumes 2.18.2 and later. [2624048]
Workaround: If you are migrating an application package created in an App Volumes version earlier than 2.18.2 with such an issue, repackage the application after migrating to the target version.
When a remote printer is defined on a UIA+Profile Writable Volume and the printer is attached to its print server through a USB interface, the printer definition on the Writable Volume might get deleted on the next non-persistent logon. [2845852]
Workaround: On the system volume, add the following two scripts to %SVAgent%\Config\Custom\uia_plus_profile :
```
OnPreLoadApp.bat: sc config spooler start= disabled net stop spooler OnPostEnableApp.bat: sc config spooler start= auto net start spooler
```
If you already have the same script names on the Writable Volume, add the spooler commands to the scripts.
When a script is present on a Writable Volume and in the system volume at %SVAgent%\Config\Custom\uia_plus_profile , App Volumes agent runs the script present on the Writable Volume and ignores the script on the system volume. To ensure that the App Volumes agent runs both scripts, you can add the following to the script on the Writable Volume:
```
if exist "%SVAgent%\Config\Custom\uia_plus_profile\%~nx0"
("%SVAgent%\Config\Custom\uia_plus_profile\%~nx0")
```
A Writable Volume move or copy operation might fail when bulk operations are performed on many volumes. [2115593]
Workaround: Retry the move or copy operation.

VMware App Volumes Documentation

For information about how to install, deploy, and upgrade VMware App Volumes, see VMware App Volumes 4 Installation Guide.
For information about how to configure and use VMware App Volumes, see VMware App Volumes 4 Administration Guide.

VMware App Volumes documentation is available at VMware Docs.

Internationalization

App Volumes content is available only in English.

Support Contact Information

To receive support, access Customer Connect.

Alternately, to file a Support Request in Customer Connect and via Cloud Services Portal, you can use the information presented in this KB article.