You can specify certain locations of Writable Volumes to exclude them from being persisted across sessions or getting overwritten.

As an administrator, you might want to prevent automatic updates of some applications and prefer to update the AppStacks that contain these applications manually.

When applications are automatically updated, multiple copies of the files might get created since the applications are also stored on the Writable Volumes. The existing applications then either do not behave as desired or stop working completely. To prevent this behavior, you can apply Writable Volumes exclusions to specific locations and registry paths.

You can also specify exclusions to prevent certain folders such as temporary download folders, from accumulating huge, unwanted files.

Important:

The Writable Volumes exclusions feature is for advanced IT administrators or users who are aware of application behavior with App Volumes and want to tweak the way applications are managed or how Writable Volumes are used along with AppStacks.

Keep the following considerations in mind before you apply Writable Volumes exclusions:

  • If the user modifies the locations that are excluded, the changes are lost when the user logs off the machine.

  • You must be aware of the application behavior and the data that gets stored in the folders you want to exclude.

  • Do not use generic locations such as \REGISTRY\MACHINE\SOFTWARE or \Program Files(x86)\. Using generic locations can cause all application updates to be erased.

Prerequisites

You must have administrator privileges on the machine where the App Volumes agent is installed.

Procedure

  1. Log in as administrator to the machine where the App Volumes agent is installed.
  2. Locate and open the writable volumes configuration file, SnapVol.cfg.
  3. Add the following entry in the SnapVol.cfg file, where path is the location of the application or registry that you want to exclude: exclude_uwv=path

    You can specify multiple exclusions.

Exclude an Application Location

The following examples exclude the folder and registry location of Notepad++ from being overwritten during an update.

exclude_uwv_file=\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++

exclude_uvw_reg=\REGISTRY\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Notepad++

What to do next

You must test the application after applying any Writable Volumes exclusions to ensure that the application works as desired.