Virtual Engine are pleased to announce the BETA release of the App-V 5 Configuration Editor (ACE). This (free) utility provides a simple user interface for editing App-V 5 machine or user dynamic configuration files without manually hacking the underlying XML files.
App-V 5 Configuration Editor User Guide
We’ve been working hard getting the App-V 5 Configuration Editor (ACE) ready for a BETA release; take a look at the ACE page for a bit more information about why it was developed.
With any new application it’s great to have some user guides, right (RTFM)?!? Rest assured that will come when it’s officially released, in the mean time we wanted to create this short blog to guide you through the ACE interface. There is also an assumption here you have an understanding of the App-V 5 Dynamic Configuration files and how they are used, if not you might want to take a look at this technet article.
USER INTERFACE
Main Toolbar:
You will notice there are three main buttons in the tool bar as shown below:
Opens an App-V XML file, i.e. a UserConfig.xml or DeploymentConfig.xml file. Once the file has been opened the contents will be parsed and displayed under the various tabs within the GUI.
Saves the current App-V XML file, including any changes that have been made. You can give it a new name and Save As a different file, keeping your original one as is if necessary.
Previews the changes that will be made to the App-V XML file before saving. This gives you the ability to check out the structure of the generated XML. It’s probably a good idea to point out here that you don’t need to preview the changes prior to performing a save.
Package Details:
This sections displays the Package Display Name, Package ID and Type of XML file opened, i.e. DeploymentConfig or UserConfig. Here is an example DeploymentConfig.xml opened below:
MAIN CONFIGURATION TABS
Once an App-V 5 configuration XML file has been opened you can then begin to make changes as required using the tabs set out below.
User Configuration
Under the User Configuration tab you can change and view various options and configurations:
Options
Various global options change be changed here if you so desire, e.g. altering the COM integration mode.
Shortcuts
This tab allows you to view all the defined Shortcuts within the package.
NOTE: at this time its Read Only but is great for getting an overview of all the Shortcuts available.
Scripts (User Context)
This is really where ACE starts to make life simple 
. You can easily define which scripts you’d like to add and to which actions, e.g. PublishPackage, UnpublishPackage, StartVirtualEnvironment, TerminateVirtualEnvironment, StartProcess and ExitProcess. There is no need to worry about getting the syntax in the XML file right. There are are some excellent blogs out there talking about using scripts in App-V 5.0, so I suggest you take a look here at one from Tim Murgent and Microsoft’s own Steve Thompson if you need some further background information.
NOTE: You might have noticed that not all the script actions are available under this tab, that’s simply because those excluded aren’t permitted to run under the User Configuration section of the XML file.
I think most of the options are self explanatory but, it’s good to point out that leaving the Timeout value at 0 means no timeout period will be set, i.e. it will wait indefinitely for it to finish so use with caution.
Machine Configuration
Under the Machine Configuration tab you can alter global options, configure scripts and control the termination of processes.
NOTE: this tab will only be available when you open a DeploymentConfig.xml file. This is because machine configuration items cannot be set in the UserConfig.xml file.
Options
Here you’ll find any options that can be changed if you so desire.
Terminate Child Processes
You can define the path to an executable, that when closed, will terminate any child process running within the virtual environment.
Scripts (System Context)
Very much like the Scripts tab under User Configuration you can define which scripts you’d like to add to which actions, e.g. AddPackage, RemovePackage, PublishPackage and UnpublishPackage.
NOTE: You might have noticed that not all the script actions are available under this tab, that’s simply because those excluded aren’t permitted to run under the Machine Configuration section of the XML file.
XML
You can view both the source (original) XML and/or preview the generated XML under this tab.
Source XML
This is simply where you can view your source App-V XML file as it was when you opened it.
Generated XML
Once you click the Preview button this pane will display any changes that will be made to the App-V XML file, giving you the ability to check out the structure of the XML before saving if you wish.
NOTE: You don’t have to preview the changes prior to performing a save.
The example below (highlighted in yellow) shows the changes made by ACE in the generated XML format.
Hopefully this brief guide has given you a good overview of how to use ACE. Hopefully you’ll agree its pretty intuitive to use and should make editing the App-V 5 Dynamic Configuration files a lot, lot easier (well we think so anyway!) 🙂
DISCLAIMER: THE APP-V CONFIGURATION EDITOR IS FREE TO USE AT YOUR OWN RISK, WE CANNOT BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE IT MIGHT CAUSE.
App-V 5 Package PowerShell CmdLets Released!
Virtual Engine are pleased to announce the release of the App-V 5.0 .APPV Package PowerShell CmdLets. These (free) PowerShell CmdLets enable you to query, extract files and report on the contents of .APPV files generated by the App-V 5 sequencer, without renaming them and manually opening them. Happy PowerShelling!
Documenting App-V 5.0 Packages
Continuing our series of posts on the Virtual Engine App-V 5.0 .APPV PowerShell CmdLets, this one will show you how to quickly document your .APPV packages’ contents. The Save-AppV5FileReport cmdlet generates a HTML report of information contained within the .APPV package contents. Here’s an example summary report (detailed reports are also available):
Generating Single Reports
Generating summary reports (such as the one above) simply requires running the following command:
[code]C:\PS> Save-AppV5FileReport –AppV C:\Mozilla_Firefox_v17.0\Mozilla_Firefox_v17.0.appv[/code]
This will generate a Mozilla_Firefox_V17.0_Report.html file in the source C:\Mozilla_Firefox_v17.0\ directory. If we wanted a detailed report instead we could run:
[code]C:\PS> Save-AppV5FileReport –AppV C:\Mozilla_Firefox_v17.0\Mozilla_Firefox_v17.0.appv –Detailed[/code]
Documenting Multiple Packages
Creating a report for a single package is fine, but what if we wanted to document all packages on a share or in a folder? Fortunately this is simple. If you wanted each package report in the source package directory, we can do so like this:
[code]C:\PS> Get-ChildItem C:\Packages\ -Include *.appv -Recurse | % { Save-AppV5FileReport -AppV $_.FullName }
Directory: C:\Packages\GoogleChrome_v23.0.1271.91
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
—- ————- —— —-
-a— 02/05/2013 12:36 8884 GoogleChrome_v23.0.1271.91_Report.html
Directory: C:\Packages\Mozilla_Firefox_v17.0
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
—- ————- —— —-
-a— 02/05/2013 12:36 8802 Mozilla_Firefox_v17.0_Report.html
Directory: C:\Packages\Paint.Net_v3.5.10
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
—- ————- —— —-
-a— 02/05/2013 12:36 8770 Paint.NET_v3.5.10_Report.html[/code]
What about if we wanted all the reports in a single location? Again, pretty straight forward. The Save-AppV5FileReport cmdlet has a –FilePath parameter that we can specify the output location. Note: this folder is not automatically created so make sure it exists! Our command to achieve this is:
[code]C:\PS> Get-ChildItem C:\Packages\ -Include *.appv -Recurse | % { Save-AppV5FileReport -AppV $_.FullName -FilePath C:\Packages\Reports\ }
Directory: C:\Packages\Reports
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name
—- ————- —— —-
-a— 02/05/2013 12:40 8884 GoogleChrome_v23.0.1271.91_Report.html
-a— 02/05/2013 12:40 8802 Mozilla_Firefox_v17.0_Report.html
-a— 02/05/2013 12:40 8770 Paint.NET_v3.5.10_Report.html[/code]
Hopefully you’ll find these HTML reports useful. We are planning to add sequencer reports into this module in the near future too, so stay tuned! Happy PoShing 😀
Installing the new App-V 5 PowerShell Modules
Following on from the release of the Virtual Engine App-V 5.0 PowerShell CmdLets, I thought I best give you a quick run through on setting them up! Installing the PowerShell modules is easy, regardless of whether you’re installing them just for your user account or on a per machine basis. Note: we will package these up into a .MSI once we’ve had some initial feedback and fixed any “features!”
Per User Installation
To install the new modules on a per-user basis, extract the files into your ‘Documents\WindowsPowerShell\Modules\’ directory:
Per Computer Installation
To install the new modules on a per-computer basis, extract the files into the ‘C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules\’ (or %PSModulePath% for short!) directory:
Importing
To import and use the modules, simply run the following PowerShell command (they are digitally signed):
[code]Import-Module VirtualEngine-AppV5[/code]
You may be prompted to confirm that you trust the publisher (!?). The modules are digitally signed. If you want to use them, then you better ensure that you select the ‘Always Run’ (or at lease ‘Run Once’) option!
Once they’re loaded you can check by running the following PowerShell command. If you see something similar to this then you should be all set:
[code]PS C:\Windows\system32> Get-Command -Module VirtualEngine*
CommandType Name ModuleName
———– —- ———-
Function Get-AppV5File VirtualEngine-AppV5
Function Get-AppV5FilePackage VirtualEngine-AppV5
Function Get-AppV5FileReport VirtualEngine-AppV5
Function Get-AppV5FileXml VirtualEngine-AppV5
Function Get-AppV5FileXmlPackage VirtualEngine-AppV5
Function Get-VEAppV5Version VirtualEngine-AppV5
Function Save-AppV5File VirtualEngine-AppV5
Function Save-AppV5FileReport VirtualEngine-AppV5
Function Save-AppV5FileXml VirtualEngine-AppV5
Function Save-AppV5FileXmlPackage VirtualEngine-AppV5
PS C:\Windows\system32> [/code]
Note: The modules require PowerShell 3.0 and the Microsoft .Net Framework 4.5. These are installed by default on Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012. If you’re running Windows 7 without these requirements, then you’ll receive errors. Make sure you meet these requirements.
Extracting files from an .APPV file with PowerShell
Whilst doing a lot of work with App-V 5.0 we have come across the requirement to look inside the .appv file with PowerShell. In our particular instance we’re after the package VersionId which is contained in the AppxManifest.xml file. As previously championed, we love automating and this should be easy!
The .appv file extension is a compressed archive and therefore, should be simple to crack open. After scouring the interweb, there is very little information on how to achieve this in code. We could use the built-in Shell32.dll functionality but this requires us to rename the file to .zip first. Ideally we want to avoid copying or renaming the source files. I did find one reference over on the Login Consultants forum which pointed me in the right direction.
Disclaimer: the following code requires the .Net Framework 4.5. The System.IO.Compression.FileSystem object is not available in previous releases. You can check in the C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\assembly\GAC_MSIL\ folder and if you have the System.IO.Compression.FileSystem folder you should be good to go 
.
To get this new .Net functionality to work within PowerShell we will be calling the .Net assemblies directly and therefore need to create a couple of references. In our example we’ll be using both the System.IO.Compression and System.IO.Compression.FileSystem assemblies (two different DLLs hence the two references):
[code]### The System.IO.Compression.FileSystem requires at least .Net Framework 4.5
[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName(“System.IO.Compression”) | Out-Null;
[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName(“System.IO.Compression.FileSystem”) | Out-Null;[/code]
Next we can create our FileStream object (with read only access) required by the ZipArchive object class.
[code]### Open the ZipArchive with read access
$FileStream = New-Object System.IO.FileStream($SourceAppV5Archive, [System.IO.FileMode]::Open);
$AppV5Archive = New-Object System.IO.Compression.ZipArchive($FileStream);[/code]
In fact we can shorten this down to a single line:
[code]### Open the ZipArchive with read access
$AppV5Archive = New-Object System.IO.Compression.ZipArchive(New-Object System.IO.FileStream($SourceAppV, [System.IO.FileMode]::Open));[/code]
Once we have opened our .ZIP (.appv) file we can retrieve the AppXManifest.xml file entry:
[code]### Locate the AppxManifest.xml file
$AppxManifestEntry = $AppV5Archive.GetEntry(“AppxManifest.xml”);[/code]
Having the ZipArchiveEntry object we can extract it with the ExtractToFile method:
[code]### Extract the $ZipArchiveEntry
$ZipArchiveEntry.ExtractToFile($SaveAs);[/code]
Unfortunately this does work and reports the following error:
[code]Method invocation failed because [System.IO.Compression.ZipArchiveEntry] doesn’t contain a method named ‘ExtractToFile’.[/code]
Eh!? WT… Looking on the ZipArchiveEntry reference page on MSDN, the ExtractToFile is an Extension Method. Therefore, we need to utilise the underlying object method, the ZipFileExtensions.ExtractToFile method. For more information on Extension Methods in PowerShell see here and here. Now our code should look like this:
[code]### Extract the ZipArchiveEntry (ZipArchiveEntry.ExtractToFile is an extension method)
[System.IO.Compression.ZipFileExtensions]::ExtractToFile($AppxManifestEntry, $SaveAs, $Overwrite);[/code]
Finally we need to ensure that we correctly dispose of the ZipArchive object otherwise we’ll leave it open:
[code]### Ensure we close the file handle otherwise the file will be left open
$AppV5Archive.Dispose();[/code]
That’s it! It you want a simpler way of doing this, just download the Virtual Engine App-V 5.0 Package PowerShell CmdLets. You can achieve all this in just a single command:
[code]Save-AppV5FileXml -AppV c:\package.appv -XML AppxManifest[/code]
Full PowerShell Code Snippet
Here is the full code listing:
[code]### The System.IO.Compression.FileSystem requires at least .Net Framework 4.5
[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName(“System.IO.Compression”) | Out-Null;
[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName(“System.IO.Compression.FileSystem”) | Out-Null;
### Open the ZipArchive with read access
$AppV5Archive = New-Object System.IO.Compression.ZipArchive(New-Object System.IO.FileStream($SourceAppV5Archive, [System.IO.FileMode]::Open));
### Locate the AppxManifest.xml file
$AppxManifestEntry = $AppV5Archive.GetEntry(“AppxManifest.xml”);
### ZipArchiveEntry.ExtractToFile is an extension method
[System.IO.Compression.ZipFileExtensions]::ExtractToFile($AppxManifestEntry, $SaveAs, $true);
### Ensure we close the file handle otherwise the file will be left open
$AppV5Archive.Dispose();[/code]