The Compatibility Gladiator

Application Compatibility Planning, Remediation, Mitigation, Virtualization, and Modernization

On Optimizing Large Deployments of Windows Analytics

One of the more crucial pillars to ongoing success with managing initial Windows 10 deployments, as...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 07/07/2018

On the Art of Predicting Compatibility Regression when Assessing Risk

In my last blog post:...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 03/09/2018

Determining an Application's Impact when Assessing Risk

In my most recent blog...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 02/20/2018

Leverage a Risk-Based Approach to Application Compatibility Testing

Once upon a time, application compatibility projects usually followed these basic tenets: 1.)...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 02/14/2018

How Detailed is Your Enterprise Application Catalog?

Over the past several years, I have been involved in many application projects. Whether the project...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 02/13/2018

Recent App-V Case Studies

Internally, I was recently asked if I had any examples of recent App-V Case Studies that other...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 05/24/2017

A New MED-V Blog Post . . . Yes, for Real

For most individuals in my profession, any plans that were originally made for today were upended by...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 05/16/2017

Resolving the App-V 4 - SQL Server 2008 R2 Supportability Conundrum

Over the past 6 months, I’ve had quite few customers coming to me with concerns regarding what they...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 04/05/2017

Application Virtualization and Compatibility at Microsoft Ignite 2016!

Greetings all! If you are headed to Atlanta for #MSIgnite this year, I wanted to give you a heads up...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 09/26/2016

On Debugging Virtual Applications: Part 1: Overview (or Let’s Start at the Beginning)

For many application packagers, virtual application sequencers, and general IT pros, the concept of...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 02/19/2016

This morning, I was on a joint webinar with Flexera...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 02/16/2016

In recent blogs posts, I’ve been discussing the topics of how to leverage App-V for software...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 02/12/2016

App-V: On Targeting Azure RemoteApp Images with the App-V Management & Publishing Server

There are two types of Collections with Azure RemoteApp: A Cloud Collection and a Hybrid Collection....

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 02/10/2016

App-V: More on App-V with Azure RemoteApp

Last April, we gave a little bit of information on the limited use of App-V applications with Azure...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 02/09/2016

Anatomy of an Outlier Bug: The Issue of the Failed App-V Report Upload

When software malfunctions, product support teams attempt to narrow the issue down to user error,...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 01/24/2016

Less Than 1 Week Until the End of Support for Legacy versions of Internet Explorer (except Windows Vista and Server 2008)

Here we are! It is almost time. Over 16 months ago, Microsoft announced that support for legacy...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 01/06/2016

For my Friends and Family: You have no excuse not to secure your Microsoft Accounts with Multi-Factor Authentication

I am always begging my close friends and family, many who are not all that technical, to follow...

Author: anonymouscommenter Date: 11/27/2015

Farewell to Zune

As I write this, within a few hours, the Zune Service is expected to end per earlier announcements....

Author: anonymouscommenter Date: 11/14/2015

App-V 5.x Client Publishing Server Address

Hi all, I've had the pleasure of working with the Gladiator for the past 5 years and now I have...

Author: Dafalk Date: 10/22/2015

Planning for Windows iSCSI SAN boot on Private Cloud Bare Metal Hosts

Data Center Modernization has definitely reached critical mass. The message that came from TechEd...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 06/12/2015

On the Bloggers, Analysts, and the Shareholders.

Over the past 20 years, I have had many different roles in IT. I’ve been a helpdesk jockey,...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 06/12/2015

App-V: On App-V Applications Hosted in Azure RemoteApp

With the release of Azure RemoteApp, Enterprise customers can now move their non-persistent RDS...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 04/28/2015

App-V 5: On Java Virtualization Strategies

Throughout the past 15 years, from its origins in Softricity, one of App-V’s primary use cases has...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 04/26/2015

On App-V with Azure: Streaming Applications from the Cloud

In App-V in general, the Content Store (also referred to as the package source or streaming source)...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 04/17/2015

App-V 5: On the App-V 5 Virtual Registry

I have been meaning to follow-up my previous discussions of the App-V registry staging subsystem...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 04/16/2015

Recommendations for Ignite 2015

Better Dynamic Application Delivery through UE-V & App-V: Aaron Ruckman and myself will be...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 04/16/2015

On Office with App-V: Planning for a Virtual Office Deployment

Microsoft Office: A flagship product suite ubiquitous within the enterprise. The average enterprise...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 04/16/2015

Application Troubleshooting: An Error Message, Without Context, is Worthless

Note: This blog contains free stock photos that were too hilarious to pass up. I was inspired to...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 03/04/2015

App-V 5: Do you Still have to Run Process Monitor within the App-V Bubble when Troubleshooting Applications?

If - by that question you want to know if you must start an instance of Process Monitor within the...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 03/02/2015

App-V 5: Further into COM and Dynamic Virtualization

It has been addressed to me by the MVP community that more clarification is needed with regards to...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 01/13/2015

Manageability Lingo, Standards, & Acronyms, Oh My!

Since the dawn of the 21st century (and even before) you have been hearing many items related to...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 01/10/2015

App-V 5: On the LocationProvider and the IgnoreLocationProvider Feature

In a previous blog entry,...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 01/08/2015

Free Office 2013 App-V Deployment Training now Available on Microsoft Virtual Academy

This week, we have released more guidance on deploying Office 2013 with App-V 5.0 through MVA. In...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 12/11/2014

App-V 5: On the PackageSourceRoot

One way App-V client administrators are able to centrally control and override content streaming...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 12/09/2014

MDOP 2014 R2 is now Available!

The latest version of the Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack has been released! This release...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 12/08/2014

App-V 5: On Background Streaming

Several years ago, I wrote an article for the App-V team blog on the Autoload feature that was first...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 12/03/2014

WMI Explorer 2.0 is now on Codeplex!

When I worked in support, I troubleshot WMI quite bit using many tools. One tool I still keep my eye...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 11/11/2014

On Troubleshooting HTTP Streaming

In App-V stream-to-disk scenarios where HTTP will be used as the streaming protocol, having some...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 10/30/2014

App-V 5: On Using BranchCache vs. Multi-Range with HTTP Streaming

Like with 4.6, App-V 5 uses HTTP Streaming – however – the functionality varies...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 10/28/2014

App-V: How the Sequencer Detects an Existing Package was Created

One of the most consistent recommended practices throughout the history of App-V sequencing is to...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 10/26/2014

App-V 5: On Environment Variables

Environment variables are managed on a per-package basis in App-V 5 just as they have with previous...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 10/26/2014

App-V 5: On the Catalog and Catalog Caching

The App-V 5 catalog is the client collection of package information and package group (Connection...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 10/04/2014

App-V 5: The Case of the Rogue App Path

I have been working issues where it was difficult to determine why a specific application in a...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 09/30/2014

App-V 5: On why the App-V 5 Sequencer Really Reboots

Prior to version 5 of App-V, when you sequenced an application that required a reboot, the reboot...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 09/30/2014

App-V 5: On Package Entitlement and Publishing

Before you ever want to begin testing client publishing, you want to ensure that your entitlements...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 09/22/2014

App-V 5: On App-V Package Modernization with the OPC (Open Package Container) or: One Package Container to rule them all!

Much of the changes in App-V 5 revolved around moving to more integrated components (NTFS, a...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 09/20/2014

App-V 4.6 Sequencing: What are the logs really for?

For sequencing in App-V 5, the new ETW model simplifies the process and moves App-V to the Windows...

Author: Steve Thomas (MSFT) Date: 09/20/2014

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