Solution: How to launch two App-V 5.x sequenced different versions of firefox side by side

Recently I came across an issue in TechNet which was quite interesting.

Issue:

I was able to publish two Mozilla Firefox (41.0, 49.0) to a client machine. I've added Desktop Icons with the respective version on it to differentiate one from the other.
If I open them individually, not keeping both opened, I can confirm the version of the browser checking the Help otpion, however if I open one browser say 41.0, keep it opened, then open the second browser version 49.0 , the first browser version 41.0 will take precedensce on the second instance too.This can be checked by opening up help and checking the version. The second window showed 41.0 version even though it was 49.0 version firefox shortcut.

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/c364b975-a2e4-425f-8d4c-88fdc7550599/having-two-mozilla-firefox-versions-from-appv-published-to-a-computer-if-i-open-both-versions-one?forum=mdopappv&prof=required

Solution:

Edit the dynamic config file and add the below -no-remote in the <Arguments> tag. -no-remote will tell the FireFox to use a new instance of it while opening, if we don't pass the argument then it will open a new window but it will be the same instance of previously opened FireFox.

<Shortcuts Enabled="true">
        <Extensions>
          <Extension Category="AppV.Shortcut">
            <Shortcut>
              <File>[{Programs}]\Mozilla Firefox.lnk</File>
              <Target>[{ProgramFilesX86}]\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe</Target>
              <Icon>[{Windows}]\Installer\{xxxxxxxxx-0B398xxxxxxF}\Icon_firefox1.exe.0.ico</Icon>
              <Arguments> -no-remote  </Arguments>
              <WorkingDirectory>[{ProgramFilesX86}]\Mozilla Firefox\</WorkingDirectory>
              <ShowCommand>1</ShowCommand>
              <ApplicationId>[{ProgramFilesX86}]\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe</ApplicationId>
            </Shortcut>
          </Extension>
        </Extensions>
      </Shortcuts>


Save the deploymentconfig/user config file and add it while publishing.

Reference - http://kb.mozillazine.org/Opening_a_new_instance_of_Firefox_with_another_profile

Solution - Virtual applications packaged into MSI format doesn’t install on inbox App-V client in Windows 10 Anniversary update 1607

We see that the solution provided in the link from Microsoft for the msi (sequenced with App-V 5.1 or earlier) failure in windows 10 v1607 doesn't seem to fix the issue.


https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/manage/appv-release-notes-for-appv-for-windows

We see the below Msidb.exe not found error running the command as said in the link.





When checked for Msidb.exe, it was found in c:\program files(x86)\windows kits\10\bin. Changed the -msidbpath to c:\program files(x86)\windows kits\10\bin and tested. It fails too. Changed it to c:\program files(x86)\windows kits\10\bin\msidb.exe. It fails too.




The update-AppvMsiPackage.ps1 from C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Microsoft Application Virtualization\Sequencer seems to look for the location c:\program files(x86)\windows kits\10\bin\msidb.exe which is not located after installing the windows 10 sdk. The actual path where the msidb.exe is located after installing windows 10 sdk is c:\program files(x86)\windows kits\10\bin\x86\msidb.exe



 


The above highlighted code needs to be changed to $msidbExe = Join-Path -Path $msSdkPath -ChildPath "Bin\x86\MsiDb.exe"

Save the modified code and run the command. Now the solution works fine and the MSI gets updated.