Has anyone been successful in publishing Office apps on Server 2019 and having the Office sign-ins work as expected? This is using Shared Computer Activation. The issue is when a user signs in to the Office app, another window pops up that is not visible (or falls behind the app) when the app is in seamless mode. To the end user, the app appears frozen. If you have a RDSH desktop or manually launch explorer.exe, the process works as expected and Office is able to license successfully.
This is a known issue that VMware and Microsoft developers have been working on this for some time, but the status seems to always be 'in progress'. Server 2019 is not a new OS and it's hard to believe there isn't a working solution when both Microsoft on their AVD platform and Citrix have both developed a working solution (or workaround). VMware's current attempt at a solution has a defect where it breaks at scale and therefore was never released. Has anyone found any viable options aside from 1) remaining on Server 2016 for seamless Office published apps or 2) launching full explorer shells or RDSH desktops?
Now for OneDrive. I understand Server 2016 and OneDrive files on demand (or perhaps as a whole) do not jive. So, that was one reason to push forward with Server 2019. We can get OneDrive to work as expected...wait for it...as long as a full explorer shell is running. Any seamless app launches will not result in the OneDrive system tray process starting up and therefore files are not available and cannot be retrieved from the OneDrive areas in File Explorer. If we manually launch explorer.exe, OneDrive auto-launches and signs in as expected. RDSH desktops also have no problems.
With all this said, how does VMware even have a play at published apps on RDSH Servers 2019 and higher? It has rendered the product effectively unusable and forces us back to desktops for everything. Has anyone else found any viable workarounds or solutions for either of these issues?
