Omnissa App Volumes Release Notes

Omnissa App Volumes is a real-time application delivery system that enterprises can use to dynamically deliver and manage applications.

Omnissa App Volumes 2309 Release Notes lists New Features, Resolved Issues, and Known Issues for this release.

What’s New

In this release, we are excited to introduce three remarkable enhancements that transform your virtual machine deployment and management experience.

• Fast Attach for VMDK Packages (vSphere 8.0 Update 2 Required)

  Experience a significant boost in performance and productivity with Fast Attach for VMDK packages. This feature increases attachment speeds for VMDK packages on VMFS and vSAN storage, resulting in faster login times, quicker app launches, and less load on the vSphere components of your environment.

  The following are the key performance improvements:

  • Twice the speed on VMFS

  Fast Attach for VMDK packages speeds up the attachment of VMDK packages on VMFS storage, providing a more efficient and responsive experience.

  • Three Times Faster on vSAN

  For users utilizing vSAN storage, this feature delivers a threefold increase in attachment speed, making your virtual machine operations seamless and efficient.

  For more information about Fast Attach and the system requirements necessary for this feature, see the Configure and Register the Machine Manager section in the Omnissa App Volumes Administration Guide.

• Amazon AppStream 2.0 Support

  We have integrated App Volumes Manager with Amazon AppStream 2.0, offering seamless integration and empowering administrators to leverage the benefits of App Volumes with Amazon AppStream 2.0.

• AWS Marketplace Availability

  App Volumes Manager is now available in the AWS Marketplace, making it even easier to get started with our free trial. It automatically sets up a database and file shares, allowing for a quick Proof of Concept (PoC). When you are ready, you can easily bring your own enterprise license to activate it.

• Azure Marketplace Availability

  App Volumes Manager is now available in the Azure Marketplace, offering a streamlined way to access our software. This feature provides a convenient, quick setup with an automatically configured database and file shares, allowing for a hassle-free Proof of Concept (PoC) as you explore the capabilities of App Volumes Manager in the Azure cloud. Should you decide to proceed, you can readily apply your own enterprise license to activate it.

• Deployment Guides

  To help you get started with these powerful integrations and features, we have prepared comprehensive deployment guides. These guides cover essential topics, including deploying and configuring your own App Volumes Manager and using it in conjunction with:

  • Citrix

  • Azure Virtual Desktop

  • Amazon AppStream 2.0

  The deployment guides provide step-by-step instructions, best practices, and tips to streamline your setup process. You can access these deployment guides at the Omnissa App Volumes documentation page.

Resolved Issues

The number included after each resolved issue is used by internal issue tracking system:

• If it is not possible to determine the Active Directory site from an IP address or subnet, a default Active Directory site is not set. This might result in App Volumes Manager contacting Domain Controllers out of its (App Volumes Manager’s) Active Directory site. [AVM-28680]

• After upgrading from App Volumes 2203.2, cached static files prevent the loading of UI elements within App Volumes Manager admin UI. [AVM-30954]

• Even though a Writable Volume is deleted from App Volumes Manager, the VMDK file remains within the datastore of the vCenter server. As a result, when a Writable Volume is created again the Created date is the same as the Created date of the Writable Volume which is deleted previously. [AVM-31054]

• Application packages fail to attach due to SQL-related issues on the database. [AVM-31055]

• Application packages and Writable Volumes cannot be attached to instant-clone desktop pools which have the Add vTPM Device to VMs option selected in the Horizon console. [AVM-31057]

For more information about the Add vTPM Device to VMs option, see the Windows Desktops and Applications in Horizon 8 documentation.

For more information about the Virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM), see the vSphere Virtual Machine Administration documentation.

• After enabling the Mount ESXi option in the Machine Managers page and when saving this setting, the following error is visible in the App Volumes Manager admin UI: Failed to connect n of n hosts host1.com host2.com hostn.com [AVM-31066]

• After moving to another datastore, a Writable Volume loses delete protection. As a result, the Writable Volume might get accidentally deleted from the datastore. [AVM-31094]

• Refresh Volume background job fails, and the following error is seen in the App Volumes admin UI System Messages tab: Refresh Volume #<Thread:ID_number run> Validation failed: Snapvol has already been taken. This error occurs when the Refresh Volume job tries to create the capture OS (packaging machine) record for a package whereas the OS record is already present in the App Volumes Manager database but is not marked as a capture OS. [AVM-31233]

• When SSL verification for an App Volumes target instance happens through a cacert.pem file present in the config directory where App Volumes Manager is installed, the following error is displayed: Error while retrieving the certificate. Unable to find the certificate for the target manager instance. After a while, the error is not visible. [AVM-31353]

NOTE: This is a UI display issue and causes no functional impact.

• Application fonts are not displayed to the end user when the fonts are not registered. [AVA-22186, AVA-20263]

This issue occurs if the session token is not available at the time of login in one of these scenarios:

- Applications are assigned to a computer.

- Applications are assigned to a user and `WaitForFirstVolumeOnlyFlag` is configured to 0.

  `WaitForFirstVolumeOnlyFlag` is an svservice parameter.

• The AppDb.txt file on UIA+Profile and Profile-only Writable Volumes created on App Volumes agent versions earlier than App Volumes 2306 contains unnecessary entries. These unnecessary entries cause excessive write operations to the AppDb.txt. As a result, this might affect the performance of an organization’s network and the datastore or file share where the Writable Volume is located. [AVA-23079]

• An application assigned to an RDS server using App Volumes Manager is not listed in the Horizon Console. As a result, a Horizon administrator is unable to create an application pool with the application assigned to the RDS server. [AVA-20887]

• Google Chrome icon is not visible until after the application is virtualized when the application package is delivered as on-demand. [AVA-21423]

• Users cannot access on-demand applications as the application shortcuts are missing. This issue occurs when file type association (FTA) data and application shortcuts are missing during package capture. [AVA-22897]

• After the Windows update of “September 12, 2023—KB5030219 (OS Build 22621.2283)” on a VM with either an application package or Writable Volume attached, Windows start menu and search do not respond. [AVA-23022]

• To run tasks at “App Volumes logon-time apps delivered” trigger, DEM depends on events set by App Volumes. If App Volumes does not set the events, then DEM does not run the tasks. For information about Triggered Tasks in Dynamic Environment Manager, see the Configure Triggered Tasks section in the Omnissa Dynamic Environment Manager Administration Guide at Omnissa Product Documentation. [AVA-23095]

• If the SFN (Short File Name) of a folder is changed during capture and after assignment the folder is searched using the updated SFN, then the following error is displayed ” System cannot find the file specified “. When the folder is searched using the original folder name, search results display the folder with the updated SFN. [AVA-19401]

• When an EXE is present in both C:\Windows\System32 and C:\Windows\SysWOW64\, and the EXE is referenced in an HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run key, App Volumes must use the SysWOW64 version. Instead, App Volumes currently uses the System32 version, which might behave incorrectly. [AVA-20073]

Known Issues

The number included after each known issue is used by internal issue tracking system:

• During installation, the App Volumes Manager installer verifies the SQL Server version to check whether the SQL server version is supported. If the installer fails to verify the SQL Server version, the installer sets the default version of the ODBC driver in the App Volumes Manager virtual machine. This might lead to unexpected behavior in the database connectivity as App Volumes Manager requires ODBC driver 17.1. [AVM-31225]

• Applications packaged on Windows 11 are shown as packaged with Windows 10 and applications packaged on Windows server 2019 and Windows server 2022 are shown as packaged with Windows server 2016 in App Volumes Manager admin UI. [AVM-29123]

• After enabling the Mount ESXi option in the Machine Managers page and when saving this setting, the following error is visible in the App Volumes Manager admin UI: Failed to connect n of n hosts host1.com host2.com hostn.com [AVM-31066]

• App Volumes Manager installation fails with the following error: Unable to install App Volumes Manager with region language (Control Panel setting) except English when the language setting on the virtual machine is Arabic. [2884143]

Workaround: Change the language to English and then install App Volumes Manager.

• When end users log into instant clone machines with App Volumes agent, the users do not receive their attachments and the following error is displayed: Volumes were not mounted due to an issue with your Writable Volume. Please try logging in again or contact your administrator. This issue occurs intermittently when one of the processes for volume attachment does not run. [AVM-31090]

• “new Microsoft Teams” which is installed in the base image, launched, and updated successfully by the user with a UIA+profile Writable Volume at the first login fails to launch at the second login onwards with the same UIA + Profile writable. This failure occurs because unexpected registry entries are captured in the Writable Volume. [AVA-24024]

  Workaround: Customize the base image by adding the following exclusions in custom\snapvol.cfg:

  Explain this code

  exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\MACHINE\Software\Classes\PackagedCom
  exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\ms-teams.exe
  exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\ms-teamsupdate.exe
  

  Copy

  When the user having the same Writable Volume logs into the agent computer which has the updated based image, new MS Teams launches successfully.

• “new Microsoft Teams” application fails to launch when Profile-only or UIA+profile Writable Volume is attached to the agent computer.

  Note: When this issue occurs, no error message is displayed by the application. [AVA-23756]

• End users with a Writable Volume experience an increase in the login time if there is a difference in the registered MOF (Managed Object Format) entries between the base virtual machine and the Writable Volume. [AVA-23247]

• When an App Volumes application package or Writable Volume includes a printer specification and the memory integrity feature is enabled, Windows crashes at startup. [AVA-23138]

Memory integrity is a virtualization-based security (VBS) feature. This feature is sometimes referred to as hypervisor-protected code integrity (HVCI). For more information about this feature, see the relevant Microsoft documentation.

• In App Volumes configurations with a profile-only Writable Volume, the Windows task bar might sometimes miss some elements after logon. When this issue occurs, the first launch of File Explorer causes Windows Explorer to fail. Such a failure displays no error or warning message and is followed by an automatic restart of Windows Explorer. After the automatic restart, the task bar appears correctly and the File Explorer works as expected. [AVA-23085]

• An application which does not have an icon and shortcut after capture cannot be delivered as an on-demand application. Additionally, for such applications, App Links are not available. [AVA-21355]

• An OS junction point from a native folder that belongs to a banned list to a non-virtualized folder (such as %APPDATA% in configurations that do no use UIA+Profile Writable Volume or a Profile-only Writable Volume) does not work properly. Files written to the junction source do not appear in the junction target. [AVA-20343]

• In a multi-session environment, the error associated with the Microsoft Office application is also visible to users who are not assigned this application package. While the application does not behave as expected for the users assigned to this package, the error has no effect on users who are not assigned to the package. [AVA-20264]

• Applications cannot write large string values (several hundred thousand characters) to the registry. [3034063]

• When a Writable Volume and FSLogix Office Container are deployed together in a VDI, the FSLogix Office Container VHD is not created on an SMB file share. This issue occurs only when the Cloud Cache feature is enabled. [2791414]

Workaround: Deactivate the Cloud Cache feature of FSLogix Office Container.

• Sometimes, the applications that are packaged using App Volumes versions older than 2.18.2 have many redundant firewall rules. These rules can impact the end-user login time on agent computers where the application package is deployed. This issue is fixed in App Volumes 2.18.2 and later. [2624048]

Workaround: If you are migrating an application package created in an App Volumes version earlier than 2.18.2 with such an issue, repackage the application after migrating to the target version.

• When a remote printer is defined on a UIA+Profile Writable Volume and the printer is attached to its print server through a USB interface, the printer definition on the Writable Volume might get deleted on the next non-persistent logon. [2845852]

Workaround:

On the system volume, add the following two scripts to %SVAgent%\Config\Custom\uia_plus_profile :

OnPreLoadApp.bat: sc config spooler start= disabled net stop spooler OnPostEnableApp.bat: sc config spooler start= auto net start spooler

If you already have the same script names on the Writable Volume, add the spooler commands to the scripts.

When a script is present on a Writable Volume and in the system volume at %SVAgent%\Config\Custom\uia_plus_profile , App Volumes agent runs the script present on the Writable Volume and ignores the script on the system volume. To ensure that the App Volumes agent runs both scripts, you can add the following to the script on the Writable Volume:

if exist "%SVAgent%\Config\Custom\uia_plus_profile\%~nx0"
("%SVAgent%\Config\Custom\uia_plus_profile\%~nx0")

• A Writable Volume move or copy operation might fail when bulk operations are performed on many volumes. [2115593]

Workaround: Retry the move or copy operation.

Omnissa App Volumes Documentation

• For information about how to install, deploy, and upgrade Omnissa App Volumes, see Omnissa App Volumes Installation Guide.

• For information about how to configure and use Omnissa App Volumes, see Omnissa App Volumes Administration Guide.

Omnissa App Volumes documentation is available at Omnissa Product Documentation.

Internationalization

App Volumes content is available only in English.

Support Contact Information

To receive support, access Customer Connect.

Alternately, to file a Support Request in Customer Connect and via Cloud Services Portal, see How to file a Support Request in Customer Connect and via Cloud Services Portal -6000005.