I'm looking for some reassurance, help, guidance before I go insane. Please excuse my venting, as I have wasted months of valuable time trying to get this working so my frustration level is at an all-time high. I understand the app volume add-on was an acquisition, but the lack of documentation, tools, etc that come with it is down right embarrising for what VMware charges for it. I get the concept, and have been excitied about implementing it to get rid of ThinApps, App-V applications, and RDS, but the inconsistecy of this solution is making me have second thoughts. I am currently working in a test environment with View 6.2, UEM 3.7, and App Volumes 2.9. Our linked-clone pool is setup with a basic Windows 7 image with nothing installed except Office 365 (because it won't work as an app stack). I used the Windows 7 optimization guide, downloaded the Horizon tool for Windows 7 and all seems to work well. Office 365 was installed using this guide: How-to configure Office 365 Pro in a non-persistent VDI environment | SvenHuisman.com and the pool is configured without persistent disks or persona, but does utilize UEM. Now, on to the problem.
Default App Stack:
- Adobe Reader
- Java / Flash / Silverlight / Quicktime
- Basic ERP client software
- Chrome
- Firefox
- Webex Productivity Tools
- Cisco Jabber
Admin App Stack:
- VMware vSphere Client
- FileZilla
- mRemoteNG / Putty
- SolarWinds IP Address Tracker
- UEM Management Console
- Other misc utilities
All the app stacks were installed on a clean image with nothing but VMware tools and the App volume agent. Both app stacks were created multiple times to see if an install was corrupt but the result are the same.
Issues:
I'm sure there's other issues that I'm forgetting about, but the main thing is Office 365. I can't seem to pinpoint what app stack is causing the issue. For example, I thought it was the Admin stack so I removed that and ran for a couple weeks with no issues on the default stack. My colleague had the same setup and now his started crashing. I guess my biggest complaint is I can't seem to find any type of log to see what is going on when this VM shuts down, or when Office 365 stops working. I feel like I'm just throwing darts blind folded and because the issues are consistent, it takes me 2-3 weeks just to find out it doesn't work. If anyone has experienced anything like this, please let me know. I would love to open a VMware support ticket, but because I can't pinpoint the issue I know it will be a huge waste of time (given my past experience with VMware support). I'm also tired of playing the "wait for the next release" game, as we bought this in December 2014 because it was supposed to change everything and I feel like VMware pushed this product down our throats without fully integrating it into the Horizon stack (off the soap box now). I will happily provide logs, screenshots, examples if anyone wants to take a stab at this. Thanks for letting me vent, and thanks for any help or guidance on this issue. I feel better...for now ![]()
First things first. Office 365 is NOT supported with App Volumes today. It will be with 2.10 coming Q4 timeframe.
There is a different license scheme used with Office 365 and there are technical considerations with how it integrates into the OS. The issues you describe we are aware of and are working on wth 2.10. It is not a specific AppStack but rather O365 itself. Stay tuned for more info as I have it I will share it.
My first suggestion would be to create appstacks with Office 365 installed into the sequencing machine (I know people say otherwise, we just use the golden image and clone it for our packaging machine).
I have seen funcky stuff regarding mostly licenses that even though we didn't install anything related to Office (it was RSAT in our case) there was still license information in that appstack.
You could also (with 365 in the sequencing machine) try and remove the Office Software Protection Service (does this still exists in Office 365 KMS??) so the appstack cannot update office licenses. It worked for us eventually.
And if you updated after December 2014, did you make sure to also update the Appstack template files? Lasts ones have had some better results with office.
I'll have to give that a shot (O365 in sequencing). I'm not sure how much different Office 365 is with standard KMS activation. I see the Office Software Protection service, but not sure if it's used. As for the templates, we didn't really start testing until 2.6. There were some stacks using 2.7 (admin) while others were using 2.9 (default). I uploaded the lastest to both datastores we have assigned. Will it only use a template when you create a new stack? Or will updating the stack change it?
I'm not quite sure how 365 does it's license configuration. Office 2013 still has KMS and i believe that Office 2016 has the exact same configuration. If it is installed into the sequencing machine it normally wont refresh it's license for others applications when installing.
"Will it only use a template when you create a new stack? Or will updating the stack change it?'
To be honest i'm not quite sure. If you go into the appvolumes manager and click on an appstack it will say which Template and agent is being used. If you update it (so a new appstack will be created) and attach it to the sequencing machine with newer agent it will update that information. I guess you then manually need to change the snapvol.cfg file that is located on the new template disk.
Maybe Jason can elaborate on best practices to update appstacks? Instead of manually copying the file?
First things first. Office 365 is NOT supported with App Volumes today. It will be with 2.10 coming Q4 timeframe.
There is a different license scheme used with Office 365 and there are technical considerations with how it integrates into the OS. The issues you describe we are aware of and are working on wth 2.10. It is not a specific AppStack but rather O365 itself. Stay tuned for more info as I have it I will share it.
I saw that Office 365 wasn't supported. We aren't using it within an app stack, it is installed natively within the OS. Are you saying that it isn't supported in either configuration?
Correct for now. We are looking at some know issues with 365 even when in the base. However please note 2.10, Q4 release, will fully support 365.
That's good to know. I will have to hold off until it's supported then. Will 2.10 also support Windows 10? To keep things moving along, I just created a new App Stack with Office 2013 Standard and will continue the rest of my app testing with that. I did notice that UEM doesn't see the Office install when I first login after a recompose and overwrites my UEM profile when I log off or reboot. I'll post a followup on that in the UEM forum. Until then, please keep me posted on release dates. Thanks again!
Yes Win10 will be supported with traditional apps (no apps with tiles, metro etc). Q4 release. There are some ways to deal with the UEM issue. Post in that forum and I will have Raymond shoot you an answer ![]()
Awesome...I appreciate the help. I've been working with the Office 2013 Standard App Stack all day, and just had a "repairing office" message come up after a reboot followed by a "not activated" message. I rebooted again and it appears to be working, so until I can re-create it I'll keep running with it. I verified that I'm using the 2.9 template and followed the deployment guide (no view agent, set KMS, activated successfuly, etc).
Give a holler if it comes back and please make sure Office was NEVER installed in the provisioning machine, an uninstall is not enough. Also you no not need to active as part of the provisioning.
Ok..it does come back after a reboot. I think this template may have had Office 2010 on it and one point in time. I do see some Office - 12.0 and 14.0 reg keys under HKLM. I'll redo it from a fresh install and see if that helps. Thanks!
So I provisioned the stack on a fresh Windows 7 install with only VMware tools installed. Every time the computer is rebooted it runs through "Configuring Office" and says its not activated. Once it's done, I can use Office and it activates properly, but a reboot will make it start over again. This app stack is attached to the user and not the computer.
Writable volume? And if so is it the same Writable?
No writable volumes are being used.
Ok, going to need the Windows installer logs to see what Office is complaining about.
I can capture them and send them your way. However, while the provisioning machine was re-created with no Office installed, the base image did have Office 365 installed and removed. Perhaps that could be the issue? I can create a new snapshot and see if the results vary before we dig through installer logs if you like. Thanks!
Okay, i had the exact same issue with Office 2010 after we used a different golden image that has a different version of office in the appstack. It seems that the Appstack still holds "old" information in the registry that correlates with the old image/packagemachine office was installed on. Just as a reference, we have Office in the golden image, NOT in an appstack.
Maybe i'm teribly mistaking in what happens with you but what i did is remove the following reg keys in the snapvol.dat file on the appstack (attach it in the registry). It could migth as wel!!!!l be that you need to remove these keys in the golden image because it still holds the "old" KNMS information of office. Also remove the tokens.dat file on the golden image if it still exists (located in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\OfficeSoftwareProtectionPlatform).
<LOADEDHYVE>\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\OfficeSoftwareProtectionPlatform
<LOADEDHYVE>\METADATA\CM\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\OfficeSoftwareProtectionPlatform
<LOADEDHYVE>\USER\<USERID>\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\OfficeSoftwareProtectionPlatform
My 2 cents is that the snapvol.cfg file does block the tokens.dat file when capturing applications while office in base but does not exclude the registry keys. In your case my guess is this information is still located in the golden image.
I'm just going to hand this forum over to Ray ![]()
Everything he said, but easy way is to make sure no uninstalled Office is anywhere to be found. And yes we are working on this..
Thanks for the info. None of those registry keys, or path existed on the base image. I also tried removing them from the snapvol.dat hive on the app stack and the results were the same. I disabled UEM to make sure nothing was being transferred there as well. Whenever the VM is rebooted or refreshed, the "Configure Office" dialog pops up, and then when it's complete it has another window that says Office is not activated. Once you select ok, another dialog says "Office was successfully activated. Please restart any office program, etc" and it works fine. I can try another fresh install or app provisioning machine, but I'm afraid the results will be the same. I also notice that it takes roughly 5-10 secs for the app stack to attach whenever I login. Also, there are no other app stacks, just Office Standard. Any other ideas? I can grab the installer logs if you wish.
