I know there are a bunch of people that have tried to get apps to work in AppVolumes and have given up. And some that are almost impossible. These are just little things that I have found to help with some of this stuff.
1. Issues with printers in App Stacks not showing up. Well after some digging I managed to find the solution.
- Mount the AppStack for update
- Once in Provisioning mode Open Uninstall the printer and or Application.
- Go to C:\snapshotvolumetemp\snapvol.cfg (This is a hidden vol that shows up with in provisioning mode)
- Add the following entries:
- exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers
- exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\Print\Printers
- Install the application or printer again.
- Complete Provisioning
- Test
2. Issues with getting relic applications. I am sure some of you have ran across some really old applications that you can not install in Windows 10. Well I have been using a simple trick from a old application I love so much. Use ThinApp to package legacy applications and then use the MSI installer to install the application into the AppStack or just use the shortcuts. That will allow you to package an application like Avaya Site Administrator that requires you to use DirectPlay that is a deprecated Windows feature. But in Windows 7 its not required. So you can package the application with ThinApp and then push it to the AppStack and use it that way till someone updates there old code.
3. Fighting with stubborn apps like FireFox and AppStacks. When you install the latest version of Firefox into a AppStack you run into issues with crashing while using it, or Just plain will not open.
When you install an application into an AppStack its installed in C:\Program Files but when a AppStack is mounted its mounted with C:\snapvolumestemp\mountpoints\GUID\svroot\programs files
And your Applications are launched from a location of C:\SVRoot\Programs
Very few applications do an Integrity check when they are opened, and just so happens Fire Fox is one of those applications. In order to fight this you can do the following.
- On master image Open registery
- Open Regedit and browse to: HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\services\svdriver\Parameters
- Edit the Multi-String named “HookInjectionWhitelist”
- Add *firefox.exe||* to the list. It will complain about white space just accept and go.
- Close out the session run through your cleanup process and shutdown, take your snapshot and test.
Found a great explanation of what the HookInjection White list is used for in App Volumes here:
“AppVolumes driver uses reparse technique to redirect every file access request to their respective appstack/writable. There are few applications which perform integrity checks on the opened file handle. Integrity check means, an application opens a file and gets the handle and then it queries for the path from the handle and compares them. In case of AppVolumes, both the paths are different and integrity check fails. This is where hook was introduced to fake paths returned to satisfy the Integrity check.
HookInjectionWhitelist is used to make sure that we do not inject ourselves to every process, instead to only inject to processes which perform some sort of integrity check.”
Found this blurb Here
4. Now with that being said about Firefox lets flip the coin a bit, And when you are having issues with Apps like Chrome running inside a AppStack. Some people get crashing Chrome, Some times you get the Sad Face “Untitled” tab when you open Chrome. But you are in luck there is a easy way to fix this. Unlike before where HookInjection White List fixed Firefox with Chrome its been know to break it. So if you are running Chrome in an AppStack try removing *chrome.exe||* from the Registry Value below on your Master Image:
HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\services\svdriver\Parameters
Multi-String named “HookInjectionWhitelist”
Snapshot the Image and test. I ran across this in searching for info about HookInjection and came across this. I have not ran into this issue but it has been pretty widespread. You can read the Thread I found this on Here.
More or less little blurbs for me to remember later on.
childebrandt42 