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pieterheijms
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

How many times is an application started

Hi,

We want information about how many times an application is started. We remove applications which never started the past x time.

Soon we will be migrating to DEM. At the moment we use another tool and in that tool, every shortcut has a pre-task that starts a script which logs the start information.

Does DEM has a built-in feature to see how many times a shortcut is started e.g. in a log file? Or do I need to make for every application a profile and Configure e.g. an Import Task (that will cost a lot of work)?

Anyone ideas to solve our question?

Cheers,

Pieter

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7 Replies
sjesse
Leadership
Leadership

No DEM can't provide this at all, you need something like

https://www.liquidware.com/videos/stratusphere

which does exactly what your asking for. In general all DEM does is zip things up when you logoff and unzips them when you logon, and for general settings unzips them everytime you login. What you can do with dem is package your scripts and shortcuts so they are deployed on user login so you don't need to deploy them everywhere.You would first package the scripts

Configure Files and Folders

making sure they are in before the profile is imported

Then https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Dynamic-Environment-Manager/9.6/com.vmware.user.environment.manage...

Configure Shortcuts

to deploy your shortcuts.

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pieterheijms
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Thx for the answer!

If I understand you correctly. You need to distribute the shortcut and script and make a shortcut to the script. We have 500+ shortcuts, so that will be very complicated. Isn't it easier to use e.g. a Pre-Import task by default for every application? The Pre-Import task runs a script from the network. I only need to figure out how I can know which application is linked to the Pre-Import task. Can I get an id or process name of the application in the script from the pre imort task?

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sjesse
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Leadership

DEMdev or someone else might have something I can think of but It doesn't work that way. The pre import

Configure Import Task and Export Task

is for application archives which is for user settings not shortcuts, you could do something here, but there isn't any feedback so you would be doing the same thing. So you still need have the shortcut and the script there somehow, or have intelligent enough scripts to find the id and set it up correctly.Thats still outside of the products capabilities, again remember outside of a few exceptions all DEM does is export an import your settings, the only intelligence it has is what's available in condition sets and directflex

Managing Conditions

Using DirectFlex

sjesse
Leadership
Leadership

Take a look at this,

Create a Custom Flex Configuration File

this shows you how to make your own config file and you look at the token available its only file path or registry settings, nothing that can see application ids or something similar.The only thing you can do is if a file exists then run this script.

DEMdev
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi Pieter,

Although I think DEM does a little bit more than "zip things up when you logoff and unzips them when you logon" Smiley Happy, sjesse is correct in his assessment that DEM does not provide any functionality around application tracking.

I'd suggest leveraging standard Windows process auditing:

pastedImage_4.png

and querying the Security event log for event ID 4688.

sjesse
Leadership
Leadership

"zip things up when you logoff and unzips them when you logon" just in terms that cars go fast :smileygrin:

pieterheijms
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

We found a solution, maybe someone in the future can use this solution.

We can make a config file and use a pre-import task with a script and a parameter (e.g. application or processname). This script writes the .exe, PC, user, time, etc in a database. So we know which .exe was started. We have a tool where we register all our application information, and in this registration tool, we are going to register all .exe files of the application. After this, we map in our database the .exe files with the application, so we know which applications aren't started for the past x time. And we can remove these applications.

But I think we are going to use the solution of DEMdev​, read the log of Windows (event 4688), so DEM will be clean and fast. And write all these event information to our database. And use our application registration tool (same as above) to map the application with the process.