Preparing a Packaging Virtual Machine

Before packaging an application, you must prepare the virtual machine used for packaging by following a certain criteria.

The criteria for preparing a packaging machine is as follows:

• An appropriate version of the App Volumes agent must be installed on the packaging machine.
• Application Packages must be packaged on a clean base image (virtual machine), which closely resembles the target environment to which you later plan to deploy the Applications.

  For example, the packaging virtual machine and the target environment must be at the same patch and service pack level. If you have included applications in the base image, the applications must also be present in the packaging virtual machine.

• Packaging machine must be running and must not have any attached Packages, Applications, or Writable Volumes.

  If you have previously assigned any Application to the virtual machine, or if the virtual machine has been used for packaging before, that virtual machine should be set back to a clean snapshot before you begin packaging a new Application Package.

• In the VHD In-guest operating mode, ensure that the packaging machine used for packaging applications belongs to the same domain as the App Volumes Manager.

Note: Applications installed by a non-admin user might not capture all application content. However, users having administrator privileges can capture all application content on the packaging virtual machine.