A few weeks ago, one of our customers experienced the problem that some App-V applications were not started until the second start. This seemed to be caused by the registry staging of the App-V application. With App-V Registry Staging, data from the application is copied to the following area of the registry when the application (Publish AppVClientPackage) is released.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\AppV\Client\Packages\<PACKAGEID>\Versions\VERSIONID\REGISTRY

When the action is complete, an empty key RegistryStagingFinished is generated.

This text describes how Microsoft App-V can be used to do a fully automated conversion of an entire collection of MSI packages to App-V packages.

The prerequisite for this is, alongside a functioning virtual sequencer, a VMware ESXi environment with vSphere and PowerCLI:

https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/PowerCLI/

This example can easily be adapted for Hyper-V.

Microsoft offers the possibility to automate packet creation with Windows PowerShell on the sequencer. The use of this module is simple. However must ensure the sequencer is installed on the environment according to the best practice for the selected environment. As a rule the automated packaging will be controlled from the outside, so use a sequencer in a Hyper-V or VMware environment and reset it automatically before each use.

Import the sequencer PowerShell extension:

This article shows how shortcuts can be created and managed in documents (such as PDF, Word, and so on) and in scripts with Microsoft App-V. New shortcuts for websites (URLs) can be created directly with the App-V Management Server, that are then inserted into the Start menus of certain AD groups. The applications run outside the virtual environment, since one leaves “the bubble” through the local scripts.
In Citrix XenApp 6.5 there is shortcut management for documents, web links or even scripts. This means that it is possible in the System Management for XenApp to create a shortcut and then later to have this shortcut automatically be made available in the Start menu or even in the Citrix web interface (now Store Front). This function is no longer available as of XenDesktop 7.x.
One of our customers had a whole pile of shortcuts and the requirement to integrate them somehow in the new XenDesktop 7.9 with App-V. In short, we found a solution with App-V to manage the Start menu shortcuts and applications. The prerequisite for this is the App-V Management and Publishing Server, in order to authorize shortcuts for groups.