That’s right people! The RunVirtual feature that was limited to machine targeted packages affecting all users has now been enhanced to allow user specific deliveries. If your not familiar with RunVirtual then read here first for a quick run down.
Machine RunVirtual
First of all its worth mentioning nothing has changed with machine based RunVirtual, the key still exists in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\AppV\Client\RunVirtual, it still affects all users on the machine and it still requires that a single globally published package is referenced.
User RunVirtual
This new key lives in the equivalent you would expect in HKEY_CURRENT_– USER\Software\Microsoft\AppV\Client\RunVirtual, it will not already be there so you can go ahead and create it. It too has certain conditions in that the default key must contain reference to a single package which is published to the user. Of course the ability to now use RunVirtual on a user basis means we have much more flexibility, especially when we consider shared platforms such as RDS environment where different users will have different packages and publishing to the machine is not always an option.
Conflicts between User and Machine RunVirtual
There are a few scenarios whereby we may end up with conflicting or overlapping RunVirtual between machine and user keys, here is a breakdown of how they will be handled:
– If the same local process is used in both machine and user RunVirtual for different packages the user key will take precedence and the user targeted package will be loaded. For example:
– HKEY_CURRENT_– USER\Software\Microsoft\AppV\Client\RunVirtual\winword.exe
– Plugin 1
– HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\AppV\Client\RunVirtual\winword.exe
– Plugin 2
When winword.exe is launched plugin 1 will be loaded. To get around this deploy the two packages in a connection group and both plugins will be loaded regardless of whether they are published to the machine or user.
– If different local processes are specified in both machine and user RunVirtual for the same package (published to both user and computer) only the machine key will work.
– HKEY_CURRENT_– USER\Software\Microsoft\AppV\Client\RunVirtual\winword.exe
– Plugin 1
– HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\AppV\Client\RunVirtual\excel.exe
– Plugin 1
When winword.exe is launched plugin 1 will not be loaded. When excel.exe is launched plugin 1 will be loaded.
Read more about the improvements of App-V SP3 here!
8 thoughts on “RunVirtual comes to the user in App-V 5.0 SP3”
Thank you App-V warrior !
Hi Thamim,
I am sequencing adobe flash player using appv 5.0 sp3 sequencer which is targeted for the entire organization.
We have a previously packaged Shockwave and Webex applications with Runvirtual key to iexplore.exe(HKCU). And the value of runvirtual is pointing to mozilla firefox package and version id. It is working fine. I have set 1 as the priority for this group. Shockwave and webex is targeted to a specific department.
Now for Adobe flash player i have to use runvirtual which is tagged with mozilla firefox hence i am publishing Firefox+jre+adobe flash player. It is also working fine when we publish it. I have set the priority as 0 for this connection group.
When i publish both the groups i can see connection groups getting published in client. Flash player works as expected. But shockwave and webex are not getting recognized. In the sense when i open IE and test Flash Player test it is working fine. but when i test shockwave using test page and webex it says shockwave has to be installed. same for webex as well. Any insight?
Hi Priya, can you clarify what you connection groups contain?
– Connection Group 1
– Priority
– Member 1
– Member 2
– Member 3
– Connection Group 2
– Priority
– Member 1
– Member 2
RunVirtual
– Key Name
– Default value
Connection Group 1
– Priority-1
– Member 1-Mozilla firefox
– Member 2-adobe shockwave
– Member 3-cisco webex
the target is only for particular department
– Connection Group 2
– Priority-0
– Member 1-JRE
– Member 2-Mozilla firefox
– Member 3-adobe shockwave
the target is for all the machines in the organization.
RunVirtual
– Key Name-iexplore.exe
– Default value-packageid_version of firefox
run virtual is targeted for the entire org. adobe flash works fine.
When IE is running, which virtual environment / connection group is showing as in use?
@Thamim,
I believe Runvirtual is limited to load single environment. In this case firefox is in both the connection group and so it opens up only one environment/connection group. Am I correct?
Yes that is correct
Hi Thamim,
i can see adobe flash player connection group shows in use.
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