#VMware #Horizon App Volumes: Hints (for Performance and Packaging)

Two weeks ago I had the pleasure to spent 4 days on problematic Applications within an App Volumes environment of a customer. The best thing that can happen to me as an infrastructure guy is to work on building AppStack with guys who know how to package and therefore troubleshoot those applications. Bringing together the knowledge from multiple domains helped us to fix the problems that we had so far with App Volumes.

Common issues we have been faced with:

  1. During the AppStack provisioning process an Application was not able to get installed
  2. (Crappy) Applications put user-data-files into C:\Windows
  3. Start-Up Performance of applications was really really slow (factor 20x slower)
  4. A mounted AppStack leads to a repair of Office-components

One of the common problems I have seen with App Volumes in the past. The infrastructure can be designed and delivered by an Infrastructure guy -> As soon as we talk about applications. We or more correct the organization that is planning to create AppStacks needs application packaging expertise.

So let’s make it quick. I will give you some hints how some of your problems might get solved.

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VMware User Environment Manager #UEM: Predefined settings – Dynamic Placeholder

I created several blog posts about the Predefined settings so far that hopefully gave you some understanding about the basic and advanced concepts.

In the following I want to show you a little bit about a feature not all of us know:

The opportunity to create dynamic predefined settings with the help of Environment variables and placeholders.

Placeholders within UEM’s predefined settings.

Within the predefined settings you are able to define variables that will be dynamically set during the runtime.

How can we do that you ask? Just use the the following placeholder within your default/predefined settings (Case sensitive):

[Flex#%environment variables%]

The following example should show you how we can use this functionality to deliver a flexibel dynamic and context-based environment for the user (that almost sounds like marketing once again).

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VMware User Environment Manager #UEM: Predefined settings – Deep how-to (Internet Explorer)

In on of my last posts I have explained what the basic concept of VMware’s User Environment Manager (UEM) is and how we can use it to pre-configure or enforce specific settings of applications in our Desktop environment.

In the following I am going to dig a little bit deeper and show you how those concepts get configured and can be used in the world of UEM.

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Create Default Settings with the Application Profiler

Once we have installed the Application Profiler we are able to create config files for UEM that explain which portion of the filesystem/registry is a part of the application’s user data.

The process is quiet simple. Start the Application Profiler, start the application from within and configure the relevant settings you want to enforce or have as a default configuration.

application

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VMware User Environment Manager #UEM: Predefined settings (Basic concepts)

The power within User Environment Manager (UEM) aligns with its ability of being able to create a managed personalized environment for the end-user (even/especially in a floating environment where no one has a dedicated virtual desktop).

One great feature to increase the productivity of the user is been implemented by having multiple and different pre-defined settings applied to a Window setting or application based on certain conditions.

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In the following I am going to document how what does different pre-defined settings mean.

I am assuming you already have the UEM infrastructure installed and configured. If that’s not the case, check out this post.

What are pre-defined settings

I remembering getting on-boarded at a financial provider somewhen in the 90’s (oh boy..I am getting old). Receiving AD-Accounts, Lotus Notes-Account, several other access data and a big document how to setup those applications. 5 hours later I was quiet ready to start doing my tasks.

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Let’s update VMware User Environment Manager (#UEM) to 9.1: features, constraints and howto

With the release of UEM 9.1 a few nice features and fixes (and a few new constraints) have been introduced. Check the release notes here for further details (or just read on).

VMware’s User Environment Manager gives us the opportunity to deliver a condition based and personalized user-experience within or (virtual and non-virtual) desktop environment.

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In the following I show what steps are involved to Update UEM from 9.0 to 9.1 (and believe me, this is quiet a simple one from a technical perspective)

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Let’s troubleshoot User Environment Manager (#UEM) 9.X: How to avoid errors during the installation

As I have written in my last post UEM is a game changer in the way how we can create great VDI solutions.

Having worked a lot with VMware’s User Environment Manager (UEM) within the last month I saw many errors made and occurring during the installation phase.

Even though the the installation is quiet straight forward, some minor mistakes can happen from time to time. I am going to summarize which symptoms might occur, how to check to gather further information and what most possiblely has caused the malfunction.

At the moment the post is focusing on the Active Directory Group Policy based installation & configuration within UEM. The newest version 9.1 allows us to it also in a non-ad way. If demand is there, I can add a section for that topic as well.

I am not going to cover the basic installation steps. Chris Halstead did a great job on that topic (and for all the things he worked on [flings, blogs, etc.]).

Please use that one for the basic installation tasks and come back to this post if you need to troubleshoot further ;-) With the following list you can fix 98% of the problems that might occur during the UEM installation ;-).

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