Lieven's Posts

Be aware that Edge, Chrome, Adobe, Onedrive, ... and other software have scheduled tasks defined which updates them. It is best practice to disable or remove these scheduled tasks on your packaging machine (and also on our golden image)

My opinion: stay away from Writeable Volumes and start using FSlogix   We use the following Folder redirection to redirect desktop, documents, downloads, favorites, music, pictures, videos App Volumes for Personalisation: Applications: Chrome, Edge, Teams, Zoom Windows Settings: Default Apps and FTAs, IE Passwords, IE Webcache, IE Autocomplete passwords, Keyboard layout, Printers, Regional Settings, Desktop Layout roaming, taskbar, typed history, Wallpaper, Windows Explorer User environment: shortcuts, printer mappings, drive mappings, File Type associations, privilege elevation, ... FSlogix for all the rest Separate officecontainer and profilecontainer For some applications that do not work well with App Volumes, I use FSlogix App Masking The above setup has given me the best results and flexibility so far with a logon time of +/- 30 seconds. When problems do arise, you can easily delete the fslogix profile portion for a user and the DEM Windows settings portion without the user loosing information. I tried Writeable Volumes in the past, but it gave me loads of problems. FSlogix is a lot more robust. Looking at all the release notes of all the different App Volumes versions, you will see that most of the "known problems" are related to Writeable Volumes.

I had the same issue. I solved it by doing the following: 1. creating a new Application. (I named it TO_DELETE) 2. Moved the application I could not delete to this new application TO_DELETE 3. Wait 1 day 4. Deleted the application TO_DELETE together with the package it contained   Version I am using is App Volumes 4.5 (2111.1)

@EmilianW1  The option "On-Demand" is indeed there. However it does not work for me as intended. In the video of Chris Halstead (https://techzone.vmware.com/?share=video4301&title=whats-new-in-horizon-8-2111 (as of 29min26sec until 30min52sec), Chris mentions that the appstack is attached after the user clicks on a shortcut for the on-demand application. Also the video of Ron Oglesby (https://blogs.vmware.com/euc/2021/11/apps-on-demand-rons-cool-feature-of-the-week.html ) does not give me more information. What is explained in the video by Jeff Ulatoski (Product Management Team EUC Group responsibek for App Volumes) is that at logon App Volumes will deliver the shortcuts, startmenu items, search, file associations, ... Only when a user click on a shortcut the appstack is attached to the machine and the application will be delivered (installed)   Firstly: I want to understand how the Apps-on-Demand feature works. If the appstack is only attached on-demand, where does the shortcut a user should click on to launch an application (which is installed in an appstack and is not yet attached) comes from and where does it point to? Secondly: I can not get the functionality to work as expected.   Lieven

Hi,  App Volumes would not help with this. The applications delivered through app volumes are using the CPU/RAM resources of the VM where it is attached to. I am however interested in how you could solve your problem in an elegant way.

Hi @sjesse  I tried already with a new user and it has the same effect. Without ataching appstacks the logoff is fast. When 1 or more appstacks are attached the logoff is slow. I can see in vcenter that it takes a long time until the VDI is reconfigured (= apstack disk is detached). Once the appstack disk is detached the logoff happens in seconds.

Hi, I use the same settings as you in DEM with the exception of direct flex and for me it works perfectly. Due to the numerous problems I encountered with writeable volumes, I gave up on them completely and replaced it with FSLogix. Since I am using FSlogix I do not have any issues anymore.

You can define your start menu layout by pushing startlayout.xml file to your VDIs via GPO. Below is my startlayout.xml file for your reference, but you should change it to match your environment and what you want to display.   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <LayoutModificationTemplate xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/LayoutModification" xmlns:defaultlayout="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/FullDefaultLayout" xmlns:start="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/StartLayout" xmlns:taskbar="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/TaskbarLayout" Version="1"> <LayoutOptions StartTileGroupsColumnCount="2" /> <DefaultLayoutOverride LayoutCustomizationRestrictionType="OnlySpecifiedGroups"> <StartLayoutCollection> <defaultlayout:StartLayout GroupCellWidth="6" xmlns:defaultlayout="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/FullDefaultLayout"> <start:Group Name="My Computer" xmlns:start="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/StartLayout"> <start:DesktopApplicationTile Size="2x2" Column="0" Row="0" DesktopApplicationID="Microsoft.Windows.Computer"/> <start:DesktopApplicationTile Size="2x2" Column="2" Row="0" DesktopApplicationID="Microsoft.Windows.Explorer"/> </start:Group> <start:Group Name="Internet" xmlns:start="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/StartLayout"> <start:DesktopApplicationTile Size="2x2" Column="0" Row="0" DesktopApplicationID="Chrome"/> <start:DesktopApplicationTile Size="2x2" Column="2" Row="0" DesktopApplicationID="MSEdge"/> </start:Group> <start:Group Name="MS Office 365" xmlns:start="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/StartLayout"> <start:DesktopApplicationTile Size="2x2" Column="0" Row="0" DesktopApplicationID="Microsoft.Office.OUTLOOK.EXE.15"/> <start:DesktopApplicationTile Size="2x2" Column="2" Row="0" DesktopApplicationID="Microsoft.Office.WINWORD.EXE.15"/> <start:DesktopApplicationTile Size="2x2" Column="0" Row="2" DesktopApplicationID="Microsoft.Office.EXCEL.EXE.15"/> <start:DesktopApplicationTile Size="2x2" Column="2" Row="2" DesktopApplicationID="Microsoft.Office.POWERPNT.EXE.15"/> <start:DesktopApplicationTile Size="2x2" Column="0" Row="4" DesktopApplicationID="com.squirrel.Teams.Teams" /> <start:DesktopApplicationTile Size="2x2" Column="2" Row="4" DesktopApplicationID="Microsoft.SkyDrive.Desktop" /> </start:Group> <start:Group Name="Varia" xmlns:start="http://schemas.microsoft.com/Start/2014/StartLayout"> <start:DesktopApplicationTile Size="2x2" Column="0" Row="0" DesktopApplicationID="{1AC14E77-02E7-4E5D-B744-2EB1AE5198B7}\SnippingTool.exe"/> <start:DesktopApplicationTile Size="2x2" Column="2" Row="0" DesktopApplicationID="{1AC14E77-02E7-4E5D-B744-2EB1AE5198B7}\notepad.exe"/> <start:DesktopApplicationTile Size="2x2" Column="0" Row="2" DesktopApplicationID="{6D809377-6AF0-444B-8957-A3773F02200E}\Notepad++\notepad++.exe"/> </start:Group> </defaultlayout:StartLayout> </StartLayoutCollection> </DefaultLayoutOverride> <CustomTaskbarLayoutCollection PinListPlacement="Replace"> <defaultlayout:TaskbarLayout> <taskbar:TaskbarPinList> <taskbar:DesktopApp DesktopApplicationLinkPath="C:\Windows\Explorer.exe" /> <taskbar:DesktopApp DesktopApplicationLinkPath="C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Google Chrome.lnk" /> <taskbar:DesktopApp DesktopApplicationLinkPath="C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Outlook.lnk" /> <taskbar:DesktopApp DesktopApplicationLinkPath="C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Excel.lnk" /> <taskbar:DesktopApp DesktopApplicationLinkPath="C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Word.lnk" /> <taskbar:DesktopApp DesktopApplicationLinkPath="C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\PowerPoint.lnk" /> <taskbar:DesktopApp DesktopApplicationLinkPath="C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Microsoft Teams.lnk" /> <taskbar:DesktopApp DesktopApplicationLinkPath="C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\OneDrive.lnk" /> <taskbar:DesktopApp DesktopApplicationLinkPath="C:\Program Files\Notepad++\Notepad++.exe" /> </taskbar:TaskbarPinList> </defaultlayout:TaskbarLayout> </CustomTaskbarLayoutCollection> </LayoutModificationTemplate>   There are two main sections in the startlayout.xml file. One for the Start menu and one for the taskbar. More info on https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/configuration/customize-and-export-start-layout and https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/configuration/customize-windows-10-start-screens-by-using-group-policy    FYI: I am using App Volumes (without writeable volumes) and FSLogix (Profile and office container)