Apps in Stacks can no longer be pinned to Windows Taskbar after 2.6 upgrade

[gv74]

Hi all,

Just a heads-up to everyone of a little oddity that seems to have crept in following the 2.6 upgrade I carried out this weekend across our VDI estates in London & Singapore.

Although the upgrade itself was completely smooth for us (no 'error 500' messages that some others have reported), I've noticed that every single app that's being presented as part of a Stack can no longer be pinned to the Windows 7 Taskbar.  The icon/shortcut itself can be pinned & behaves as normal, with associated right-click options & jump lists displayed as usual.  When the application is started however, an identical icon appears on the taskbar which contains the running app.  This icon has no right-click options at all, except for "Close window".  This happens with every single application in every stack we have provisioned across both datacenters (separate Manager installations at each site).

To clarify we have done a full upgrade - so Managers, agents & the stacks themselves have all been upgraded to 2.6.  Apps that are part of the base OS build to not exhibit this issue.  The problem definitely wasn't present for us in v2.5.2 either.

I would be interested to hear if anyone else has noticed the same issue.  Given the problem is so prolific across every app & every Stack we have, I can't help but wonder whether a little bug has crept into either the agent or the template files in this version?  It's certainly not a showstopper for us by any means but hopefully a fix can be found.

Many thanks,

Grant

[JHT_Seattle]

By updating the stacks, do you mean you just selected update for each one you had working with 2.5.2?  Would that actually update the stack based on the newer template?  My understanding was that it just clones the existing stack without modification.

[gv74]

No, the old template.vmdk file was deleted & the 2.6 version was uploaded straight after the Manger upgrade.  All Stacks were then rebuilt from scratch from the new template, rather than just doing an upgrade of the old ones (we only have four stacks being used in Production at present).  Absolutely everything is therefore at v2.6 & all stacks have been built from the new template.  Every single app provisioned in any of the stacks on v2.6 cannot be pinned to the taskbar.  Instead a separate, identical, icon is launched that contains the running app.  This cannot be pinned & only has a "Close window" option on right-click.

Several users have reported the issue today, in addition to my own findings yesterday.  It's no more than an inconvenience at present but it would be good to get some confirmation as to whether it's a bug & if it will require a new release to fix, or there is some kind of remedial action that can be taken.

[Ray_handels]

I did not see this issue with the new version yet but again we didn't create appstacks with the 2.6 template.

We did have this issue with a very old version (somewhere in the 1.0 region of CLoudvolumes) but it was fixed then. Maybe an old bug got back into the software?

[gv74]

Thanks Ray, that's interesting to know.  I'm just doing some regression testing now to see exactly where in the upgrade process the issue presents itself.  I'll post back when I have more details.

[gv74]

Following some regression testing today I can confirm that for us, the issue is very definitely with the 2.6 agent.  As soon that is upgraded on our gold image (Windows 7 x64 SP1), the taskbar pinning issues occur straight away.  This is irrespective of any other combination of Manager/AppStack version.

I tried the following combinations on a number of different machines.  The App Manager installations were all completely fresh each time:

Manager 2.5.2, Agent 2.5.2, AppStack 2.5.1 = No problem

Manager 2.6.0, Agent 2.5.2, AppStack 2.5.1 = No problem

Manager 2.6.0, Agent 2.6.0, AppStack 2.5.1 = Taskbar pin problem

Manager 2.6.0, Agent 2.6.0, AppStack 2.6.0 = Taskbar pin problem

Manager 2.6.0, Agent 2.5.2, AppStack 2.6.0 = No problem

Each time, reverting back to the 2.5.2 agent solved the issue.  I also tried on a completely vanilla Win7 x64 installation straight from the OS ISO.  Again, no issue until the 2.6 agent is installed.

For now I shall raise a support ticket with VMware & consider regressing to the 2.5.2 agent in our gold image, as we've had a number of comments from end-users about the issue (funny how the little things annoy them!).  I've tested & all our stacks work perfectly fine with the Manager/AppStacks at 2.6 & the agent at 2.5.2.  This includes a Visio 2010 stack (with Office 2010 in the base image).

[VArjan]

I have exactly the same problem.

Did you get a solution from VMWare?

[gv74]

Hi VArjan,

No, I didn't get a chance to raise a support ticket with VMware, due to various deliverables & deadlines to meet.  I simply reverted to the 2.5.2 agent in our gold image (whilst keeping everything else at 2.6) & the problem went away.

I actually ran into a number of issues with the 2.6 agent, as below:

1. Taskbar pin issue
2. When using the Recycle Bin, an additional copy of each file deleted was added to the bin per attached AppStack.  So if I deleted a file called 'New Document.txt' for example & had 4 AppStacks attached, there would be 5 copies of the file in the Recycle Bin (the original plus one for each AppStack) - very confusing!  I should say however that restoring any one of them worked fine (i.e. restored to the right place) & removed all copies from the Recycle Bin
3. Using the 'Search Computer' function from Windows Explorer would take forever & result in high CPU utilisation.  This appeared to be because the hidden attached AppStack VDMK files (which had already been merged with the File System) were also being searched

All of the above issues went away when I reverted to the 2.5.2 agent.  Will be interesting to see whether any of them are now resolved in the new 2.7 release, which is now out.

Thanks,

Grant

[VArjan]

I just found out 2.7 it out and downloaded the ISO!

Is it for App Volumes normal you cannnot upgrade? During the installation of the manager I get an error "Another version of this product is already installed."

I would expect an option to upgrade, but have not found it yet.

[gv74]

At present, the existing Manager installation must first be uninstalled before the new version can be installed.  Since v2.6 however, there is now an option to keep existing AppStack presentations when the Manager is removed.  This is to ensure users do not get their AppStacks disconnected as part of the upgrade process.  When upgrading to a new Manager, be sure to select the option NOT to overwrite the existing database as part of the installation process!

[VArjan]

Thanks, it's not always easy to find all the right information about App Volumes.

Hopefully I will get the chance to do the upgrade this week.

[Ray_handels]

Could you please let us know? Unfortenately i'm not in the position to test 2.7 right know because our test envrionment still needs to be updated. I am quite anxious to know if the issue is fixed.

[JHT_Seattle]

Good news, the taskbar pinning is not an issue with the 2.7.0 agent.

[Ray_handels]

Thanks a bunch for the info JHT, so another reason to upgrade to the new agent 🙂

[VArjan]

So far the pinning is working with 2.7...

But the pins are not saved, after a logoff and logon the pins are gone.

[VArjan]

For me it now looks the writable volume is not working ok.

If I create a file on the desktop it will come back in the next session.

If I pin a shorcut or modify my Internet explorer settings those changes are gone in the next session.

If I look at writeable volumes in the manager the version number is 2.6.0.205.

I already reuploaded the template and deleted the users writable volume.

Not sure what's going on....

[gv74]

I have found some time today to upgrade my test environment to v2.7.  I can confirm the taskbar pinning issue is now resolved (and is retained between logons).  The other two issues I noted with the 2.6 agent though are still present, namely:

• For each item you delete, an additional copy will be placed in the Recycle Bin for every attached AppStack
• Search function in Windows Explorer is largely unusable, with 100% CPU utilisation (on single core) and huge wait times for the search to bring back results.  I believe the hidden AppStacks are being scanned as part of the search, which is causing the problem

Neither of the above are present in the 2.5.2 agent.  I'm on holiday for the next two weeks but will raise support tickets with VMware on my return.  Based on the release notes, I'm not seeing much there to warrant upgrading to 2.7 anyway.  The 2.6 Manager and 2.5.2 Agent combination is working perfectly well for us in our Production environments.

Thanks,

Grant

[VArjan]

I have installed the 2.5.2 agent in the GI. The Manager is still on 2.7.

If I pin a app which is in the GI then it works fine. Also in a new session.

If I pin a app which is in a Appstack it works fine too. Also in a new session.

If I pin a Office application which in in a Appstack it works in the current session. In a new session the pin is still there, but I can't launch it.

When I look at the properties of the pin shortcut I see for the target path:

C:\SnapVolumesTemp\MountPoints\{99xx99xx-9xx9-99x9-9xx9-999999x9999x}\SVROOT\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15\WINWORD.exe

The long HEX code changes for each new session, so the shortcut won't work.

I have did a manual test of changing the path to: C:\Program ect...\WINWORD.exe and seems to be working fine.

Any idea how to fix this?