Sean Crookston » ThinApp

vSphere Client Failure, ThinApp to the Rescue

Sean Crookston — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 13:00:00 +0000

This morning I went to try and play around in my lab this morning and had a failure when using the vSphere Infrastructure Client on my local workstation. I had just re-imaged this machine a few weeks ago and was not too pleased to see something was already broken.

The message as shown below ‘The type initializer for ‘VirtualInfrastructure.Utils.ClientsXML threw an exception’ appeared.

I thought Google would be my friend but despite finding some old issues related to this error I could not resolve mine with anything I found. Nearly everything pointed to the following KB as the issue and a resolution, however my system didn’t fit the criteria of the issue, nor did the fixes described work. I proceeded to uninstall and reinstall .net, Visual J++, and various versions of the vSphere client several times until I finally gave up. In all I tried about 3 different solutions I saw posted that were possibly related with no avail.

Being I had just re-imaged my machine I certainly was not about to go through the process of doing the same. It is these types of nagging issues and the time it takes to resolve them that makes VMware View alongside ThinApp a great tool for getting rid of these desktop support nightmares.

In the end I still don’t have a fix for the issue and cannot run the vSphere client natively on my Windows 7 machine. I ended up going back to an old blog entry of mine I wrote and created a ThinApp’d version of the vSphere Client with AppLinks to Microsoft.net and J++ packages that I also had previously created.

Another really cool thing? I also took my 4.1 ThinApp’d version of the vSphere Client and created an Applink to the 4.0 vSphere Client. Similarly you could do the same for prior or new versions.

ThinApp 4.6 is Now Available!

Sean Crookston — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 13:43:04 +0000

Excited to try out the new features and you can find a complete explanation of all of them from vmware here.

The following is a quick rundown with screenshots from VMware of those features.

Full support for Internet Explorer 6 running on Windows 7.

ThinApp 4.6 adds the ability to “Harvest” Internet Explorer 6 from an existing Windows XP instance.

ThinApp 4.6 adds a new “ThinDirect” feature which allows redirecting of URLs from native to virtual browsers.

ThinApp 4.6 adds support for registering virtual services as boot-time applications

ThinApp Converter 1.0

Public availability of ThinApp Management SDK

AppLink now supports wildcard patterns for both directories and filenames

A Quick ThinApp Troubleshooting Tip

Sean Crookston — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:00:08 +0000

This is a quick and easy method for troubleshooting ThinApp applications that do not shut down properly. Using all the advanced log tracing at times is more complex for some people who are just casually and occasionally building ThinApp packages.

In Windows task manager you can add a column for Command Line, which will show the path to the file being run. By doing this you will often see several different instances of application xyz.exe, all with different paths. When a ThinApp fails to shutdown you will often find that it is a component such as an application update or something like .net that is hung.

To resolve an issue with an application that has a hung process causing it to fail:

Clear the sandbox(by default %appdata%/thinstall/appname)
Create troubleshooting entry points. Make sure the 3 entry points below are not disabled.
[cmd.exe]
Source=%SystemSystem%\cmd.exe
Shortcut=app.exe

[regedit.exe]
Source=%SystemRoot%\regedit.exe
Shortcut=app.exe

[iexplore.exe]
Source=%ProgramFilesDir%\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe
Shortcut=app.exe
Rebuild the package and relaunch. Attempt to shut down the application again and confirm it is still hung.
Target the hung process as your issue. This is step with general direction as each application will have a different fix. I’ll give two examples though.
1-Application showed .net 2.0 was running for the hung process. I browsed to %systemsystem% in the project directory and deleted the three .dll files related to .net 2.0. I then relaunched the application and ran it on a system that already had .net 2.0 and it worked great. I should note this was a package that I had issues with running on Windows 7 after capturing on XP and this article really got me thinking towards this resolution.
2- Application showed that its own update was hung. I had never used this application and could not find a setting to disable automatic updates in the application. This is a best practice step that should be taken for all ThinApps so I accessed the registry through the regedit.exe entry point I had created for troubleshooting. I browsed to the services portion of the registry and set this process to disabled.

And again this is just a potentially quick way to resolve some common issues you might see. If you regularly use ThinApp or you are not able to very quickly resolve issues with the above mentioned I’d recommend you go here for more advanced troubleshooting steps. If you are able to get this to work just use the sbmerge command to merge the sandbox into the package and rebuild the package.

How To ThinApp GNS3

Sean Crookston — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 20:00:52 +0000

Used by many to assist in supporting or learning Cisco networks, GNS3 provided a graphical network simulation. To allow this simulation, the complete package installs Dynamips(for Cisco IOS emulation), Dynagen(text based front-end for Dynamips), Qemu, and WinPcap.

The WinPcap component is actually a driver and this will need to be installed manually in the base operating system before hand. Then just follow these steps below to capture and launch.

On your clean packaging machine, run a pre-scan.
Install the complete software package, with the exception of the WinPcap driver. As noted above this must be installed in the base operating system of the machine this ThinApp package will run on.
Run a post-scan and accept all defaults. For the entry points make sure to include the following:
After completing the build of the package you will have the executables above. You will just need to launch the Dynamips Server followed by GNS3.exe to run the ThinApp. If you are looking for just single entry point you may choose to edit the dynamips-start.cmd and add a line for the launching of GNS3.exe.

A couple of new things

Sean Crookston — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 13:03:57 +0000

I’ve added a couple new pages to this blog and changed the theme around a bit to something I thought was a little better

I’ve added a PowerCLI page to the top which will be a compilation of links and code that I’ve found useful. It’s a work in progress but a few quick one’s I’ve used recently are:

Registering a LUN full of VM’s from vCritical.
Using powershell with standard switches by Mike Laverick.
On top of that another excellent resource I’ve found was at virtualizeplanet, which has a nice set of lessons for the PowerShell newbie.
And another must visit place is at virtu-al.net

I’ve also added pages for the VCAP-DCA and for ThinApp. The VCAP-DCA will contain links to all of my study notes broken down by section and the ThinApp page will contain links to the best resources for ThinApp on the web.

ThinApp VMware vCenter Server Myth or A Reality?

Sean Crookston — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 13:00:31 +0000

Why ThinApp VMware vCenter? Because it’s cool.

In reality though the question itself is not specific to this application and the thinking process of the possibilities of being to virtualize applications like this is more important. The future of application virtualization could allow for much further consolidation and as we approach the limits of consolidation with server virtualization, application virtualization could further allow us to consolidate the number of virtual servers we run but placing applications that can’t run together on the same server, together on the same server.

Recently a coworker of my mentioned that he had heard that someone had created a ThinApp package for vCenter Server. Looking quickly at the limitations of ThinApp and knowing that it is possible to Thinapp Microsoft’s SQL Express and personally creating ThinApp packages for several applications that had running services, I see no real reason why it would not be.

I attempted a few things with this package including breaking out the SQL application. I then created an odbc connection manually and connected to the external SQL server. Additionally I thought it best to change the service accounts to run a domain accounts so no matter what machine the application was run on the accounts would exist with the same password for starting up to limit any troubleshooting.

I’m able to get the web services of vCenter to start but the vCenter service itself does not. One idea I had that I will try in the near future is creating an entry point to the services so that I can start them manually. I am still not sure of the best way of doing this so I am open to ideas from anyone who may have one.

To date this is the best resource I could find on these services. http://blogs.vmware.com/thinapp/2009/07/thinapp-services.html

Is it really possible to ThinApp VMware’s own vCenter? I would say yes, even though part of how to do it has not quite been figured out yet.

How To ThinApp Adobe Acrobat Professional 9

Sean Crookston — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 21:00:56 +0000

Adobe Acrobat Professional is an application that presents some limitations to what can be virtualized. There is no way to virtualize a printer driver and as result while the Application itself can be virtualized, the Adobe PDF Printer cannot.

The solution?

Capture the software as you would any other ThinApp, but remove the Adobe PDF Printer before completing the capture process. If you do still need the Adobe PDF Printer, you can install that component to the base of your workstation or View master image.
Make sure Acrobat is not set to auto-update after applying the latest security and application updates from Adobe.
Lastly remove all unnecessary Adobe items in Startup .

ThinApp is a very flexible solution, but it is presently not possible for ThinApp or comparable software to package Drivers, COM Plus objects, Network DCOM objects, and Windows Components such as IIS or DNS servers.

Setting up your ThinApp Infrastructure

Sean Crookston — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:30:34 +0000

Beyond following the steps to create your bare machine that will be used for packaging and following the steps to successfully create packages using ThinApp, you will want to consider how ThinApp will look structurally in your environment.

You may choose to deploy the solution in with View, and you may just be implementing them together with an existing physical desktop environment. Further you may find you want to create packages that are on the local machine, or you may choose to run the packages over the network.

Regardless one excellent feature of ThinApp called AppLink will allow you to create smaller packages by using a single instance of components that are installed many times over in your environment.For example, Java or .net. Additionally you can leverage this capability to keep each of your application packages separate from their components, allowing the capability to update the flash component without having to repackage your Firefox or Internet Explorer ThinApp.

For use with a non-mobile PC, the best setup is to host the applications on a share, with a separate folder for you plugin components.

Next you would package all the components you have identified as being components that will be utilized or shared by my multiple applications. For example you will likely want most if not all of the following. Additionally you will likely want multiple versions of applications such as Microsoft.Net and Sun Java to be utilized by applications with different requirements.

Adobe Flash http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-13144

Adobe Reader(for use with embedded PDF files with web browser applications) http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-13095

Adobe Shockwave http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-13137

Apple Quicktime http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-13122

Microsoft Silverlight http://communities.vmware.com/docs/DOC-13145

Microsoft .Net http://blogs.vmware.com/thinapp/2008/11/step-by-step-in.html http://blogs.egroup-us.com/?p=1292

Sun Java http://blogs.vmware.com/thinapp/2008/10/step-by-step-in.html

http://communities.vmware.com/thinap.jspa?sortOrder=1&sortField=0&publisher=SUN&appName=JAVA&complexity=

Finally you will create your main ThinApp packages, pointing these applications to use the plugins folder. In the Package.ini for each application you will want to set the OptionalAppLinks parameter. If you want to explicitly use certain plugins set the parameter as shown below:

OptionalAppLinks=plugins\*.exe;plugins\*.dat

To specify only certain plugins set the parameters as shown below:

OptionalAppLinks=plugins\flash.exe;plugins\dotnet3.dat;plugins\java1_6_2.exe

A couple of very easy, but very neccessary ThinApp’s

Sean Crookston — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 22:16:11 +0000

Accept all defaults during installation and follow your same standard packaging steps to get these commonly needed applications to work. Then simply use a single entry point for the application as a plugin for Internet Explorer, Firefox, or another web browser using the AppLink feature of ThinApp.

Adobe Shockwave Player

Adobe Flash Player

Microsoft Silverlight

The Art of Creating The ThinApp

Sean Crookston — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:51:45 +0000

VMware’s ThinApp helps eliminate application conflicts, increases the life of legacy applications and support with new operating systems such as Windows 7, and overall helps to streamline the application deployment process in addition to providing storage savings as result of thinner packages. On top of that ThinApp helps drive VMware’s VDI offering with View and with the upcoming release of View 4.5 will offer full deployment integration with applications packaged using ThinApp 4.5.

In many ways capturing a ThinApp is no different the capturing software using packaging software such as Wise. The steps to capturing a package below all show equivalents to packaging software in the traditional ways we have come to know.

Create your baseline image.
Run Pre-Installation Setup Capture.
Install the Application.
Run Post-Installation Scan.
Modify
Build
Deploy

ThinApp adds a feature to its product that allows the ability to individually package applications, and then link them together to utilize them if necessary. The AppLink feature gives you the ability to package applications such as Java, .Net, and other software that is typically a dependency, and link it to your primary applications. This allows you to isolate the dependencies from the packaged applications, with the gained benefits of being able to easily update those dependencies and thin down the size of your ThinApp packages.

When it comes time to get your application to work in the ThinApp world, the approach of capturing each individual component is not always as easy as it sounds though. These three important steps will greatly reduce the amount of time spent capturing your ThinApp packages.

The software must work with all dependent applications outside of the ThinApp world first. This is certainly 0bvious but worth pointing out. If it doesn’t work on your workstation now it definitely will not work as a ThinApp.
Check to see if someone else has already had success or failures; no point in reinventing the wheel. The best resource for this is the ThinApp Community Discussions. In the future I hope to see the Thinapp Community Portal contain more detailed information about many more applications. To date there are only 47 entries here and the applications are mostly not relevant to requirements I have had.
Similarly to item number one, the software must all work together under a ThinApp package for it to work as a set of linked packages using AppLink.

Take for example a recent experience of mine and the inspiration for this writing. While it is important to understand an application you are about to package and know every component that is required for it to run, it is NOT necessary to package each piece of software separately initially, or at all if you do not plan on using AppLink to gain the above mentioned benefits.

For example if you have an application that requires Oracle, Java, and .Net install all these applications together with the primary application. If that works proceed with creating your individual packages to use with ThinApp’s AppLink functionality.

When issues occur and you have an application linked to multiple applications it is very difficult to know with any certainty where you went wrong. In the case of the application I was working with there were actually two other dependencies, and while I spent several hours working with AppLink it was not until I packaged all of the applications together that I could confirm with certainty the application would work in the ThinApp World.