App Volumes writable volumes mount as drive letter

[pstover]

I'm trying to get my Win10 virtual desktop with AV 2.12.1 to utilize a drive letter instead of the mount point on C:.  The DriveLetterSettings set to REG_DWORD 6 does nothing.  I've tried a few other combinations also.  I've read other say the regedit does not seem to work with previous AV versions.  Any ideas?

[techguy129]

I couldn't get it to work either.

The workaround I am using is to create a new appstack and add the following lines to startup_postsvc.bat. I assign this to any users that use writable volumes. So far its been 100%

powershell.exe -Command "get-volume -DriveLetter E | Get-Partition | foreach{Remove-PartitionAccessPath -DiskNumber $_.DiskNumber -PartitionNumber $_.PartitionNumber -AccessPath "E:"}"

powershell.exe -Command "get-volume -FileSystemLabel "CVWritable" | Get-Partition | Set-Partition -NewDriveLetter E"

[pstover]

OK thanks.  Did you use the AppStack scripts because the WVol scripts weren't timely? (prestartup.bat)

[techguy129]

I used an appstack because its easier for me control the assignments rather then update all writable volumes.

[pstover]

I put the script in my WVol prestartup.bat and it worked but torched the W10 start menu and didn't seem to resolve file copy failures from network drives to local desktop (WVol).  Perhaps prestartup.bat is too early.  I'll try with a dummy AppStack using your .bat.

[pstover]

FYI support got this working for me.  Apparently you also need to modify the UIA+profile template volume and change an attribute on it and then use it for all new writable volumes.  This results in the DriveLetterSetting working properly.  There also is a detach volume setting you need to add to allow disable volume operations to work correctly.  Below is the process for the diskpart and DriveLetterSetting process.

1. start a VM without AV agent installed or service disabled (helper VM)
2. edit settings on the VM, add VMDK for the UIA_plus_profile template to the helper VM
3. change disk type to independent-persistent (from dependent)
4. Clear the NODEFAULTDRIVELETTER attribute on the template volume with diskpart
a. run 'diskpart'
b. list volumes
c. select volume
d. attributes volume clear NODEFAULTDRIVELETTER
5. shut down helper VM
6. disconnect disk (no need to set the persistence mode back)
7. delete all entitlements to WVol existing, including AD groups (group is bound to old template)
8. set regedit on svdriver\parameters key DriveLetterSettings REG_DWORD 6 per https://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=21282...
9. Log on to a desktop and note drive letter mount for the volume.  Test out Chrome browser with extensions (known to fail without drive letter mount).