Our GI and Install Machines do NOT attach to the Domain.. so i shouldn't be pulling in any Ancillary App Stacks or even a writable..right ?
( just for giggles i logged into my install machine and went to Disk Mgmt - i see no App Stack or Writable attached )
True. Never attach any appstack or writable to both the golden image and the package machine (other than for packaging off course
) otherwise your GI will hold information regarding appstacks and writables which will eventually bite you in the back somewhere..
Im presuming things get saved to the Writable Even if i don't explicitly install anything there ? or no ?
Yes. It depends on the writable you use off course but I see that you are using UIA only. This means that every change made to the files or registry that is not related to user stuff (more precisely the entire c:\Users folder and the HKCU reg tree) is written into the writable. You do have the option to exclude stuff from there by editing the snapvol.cfg on the writable.
I would suggest adding your writable to a machine that does not have an Appvolumes agent so you get a clear idea of what is actually written to the writable. You will see a root folder with some batch files, a snapvol.cfg with configuration of what is excluded and a snapvol.dat which is a reg Hyve that stores changes to the registry you (or the machine) made during use of the VDI machine.
Bu let's say you have an application installed in an appstack and didn't disable the auto update feature. The application would then install it's update into the writable making it impossible to manage it using appstacks because the update of the app is written into the writable. It does work quite well for us but you need to be very careful with what you enable in the VDI machine for your users..