A lot of App-V packagers still are not aware, starting with the 1607 build of Windows 10, the App-V client is no longer published in Programs and Features. Once you enable App-V via Powershell, the version can be found in the registry under HKLM\Software\Microsoft\AppV\Client. You will see the version string with the value. As Microsoft forces patches on the community, you may need to refer to the version to see if a roll-up is causing you issues.
Speaking of Microsoft roll-ups, if the goal of you company is to virtualize as many apps in your portfolio, validate your risks with application virtualization. We can no longer pick and choose what App-V hot fixes and service packs we can install, putting your portfolio at risk with each windows 10 roll-up. Now we have a more single point of failure if the app-v client receives a bad patch. Regardless of the number of applications that you have virtualized in the environment, you should always test your applications prior to rolling out updates.
Microsoft added new features in 5.0 SP2 that broke virtualized products like Adobe. Then in 5.1, the dependency for C++ 2005 was removed. You would think that removing a dependency would not cause issue, but it broke sequenced applications again.
Additional things to remember if you have forgotten:
- Starting with the 1607 roll-up, Microsoft will no longer allow previous versions of the App-V client to even install. So get off those legacy apps that you have in 4.6.
- This means all the great money saving scenarios where App-V was the solution, not anymore.
- If you are using MSI’s from previous versions of the App-V Sequencer to deploy to Windows 10, you will have to modify each of them by editing the hard coded check for App-V 5.1.
- Yes, people do deploy App-V packages with MSI’s in a lot of scenarios.
In my opinion, App-V should be a used in use case scenarios only.