App-V & Ue-V available by default in the new Windows 10 build 14316 - First hands on review

Thursday, April 14, 2016

App-V & Ue-V available by default in the new Windows 10 build 14316 - First hands on review

As everyone would have already known the earlier news that Microsoft has planned to incorporate App-V in its new windows 10 release Redstone 1. Recently Microsoft has released its insider preview release for Windows 10 Build 14316. I had an opportunity to test it. Below are some interesting findings.

1. We can see the App-V files present in the C:\windows\System32 folder. One can think why Microsoft has kept the files like this instead of keeping them in a separate folder? (Ex: C:\windows\System32\App-V). Though we were not able to get answers, we have to wait for Microsoft to give its reason.

2. The same applies to Ue-V files. They are also present inside the same C:\windows\System32 folder and not in a separate folder (Ex: C:\windows\System32\Ue-V). .

3. Next we tested publishing some sample apps. it wasn't successful. The reason was that the App-V Client service was disabled by default. Turning the App-V client services manually ON worked for us. We can start the service manually to make the App-V client to work but we didn't want to. We wanted to try some other options.

4. Entering gcm -module AppVClient will return the available App-V commands.

We saw that there is a command Enable-App to enable the App-V client service. We opened elevated powershell and typed in Enable-AppV, but it didn't return anything.So we had a thought that the command didn't work.Checked the Appv client service and it seems to be have started.Reboot might be required for proper functionality.

Note: If it doesn't work, then we need to import the AppVClient first using the PS command Import-Module AppVClient to make it work. (Thanks to Roy Essers)

Also note that these commands need to be tested in x64 version of Powershell. If not it will show error.

Published an application and it works fine as expected.

You can also use the Disable-AppV command to disable the App-V Client.

So we can finally say that the Enable-AppV and Disable-AppV command works but it doesn't give any status output whether it is a success or failure. Hope Microsoft will fix this in its upcoming release.

Even though when App-V client is enabled, running the App-V sequenced windows installer (.msi) file generates the below error.

For now removing the Launch condition from the MSI worked. To know more check here.Hope Microsoft will rectify this issue too.

To Enable Ue-V, you need to use Enable-Uev command in an elevated powershell.

Note: If it doesn't work, then we need to import the UEV first using the PS command Import-Module UEV to make it work.

To disable Ue-V, you need to use Disable-Uev command in an elevated PS.