Tales from the Datacenter

Refreshing App-V Publishing Server

We’re in the middle of checking out App-V from Microsoft’s MDOP.  At the moment, the deployment is limited to IT (and a fraction of IT at that).  We’ve already figured out a lot of cool things about it, but we’ve also run across a few annoying things.  In any case, I’ve run across something those testing might want to keep in mind.  I wouldn’t call it a bug – the design is probably purposeful – but it’s something to be aware of.

Generally, the App-V Client refreshes the applications published to a user at log on.  This, of course, means valuable seconds/minutes are wasted waiting for the machine to log off and back on.  So, of course, there is a way to manually refresh the published applications via the App-V Client Console.

As any good administrator does (yeah, right), they do not set themselves as a local administrator for the machine they are using.  In order to access some of the “administrative-y” features of the App-V Client Console (such as the option to delete an application from the client), one must “Run as Administrator” – assuming they aren’t a local administrator.

Here’s the kicker: if you’ve opened the console as an administrator (using “Run as…”) and refresh the published applications, you’ll be updating it based on the user’s credentials you’ve provided.  If you’re running the console under the logged in user’s credentials, you’ll be updating the applications based on the applications published to that user.

I’ll admit this does sound like an obvious conclusion, but for those of us who choose not to be local administrators it seems a bit confusing.  Just remember: the console updates based on user – not machine (because the applications are published based on a user and not a computer account).